The company has had multiple litigation cases before Cambridge Analytica. This timeline will explain everything:

2004

One lawsuit occurred when an oral contract was broken between Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, in “return for equity.” They wanted to have a website called HarvardConnection. The twins and their business partner, Divya Narendra, sent the social media empire a cease-and-desist letter.

2008

The lawsuit was finished due to the twins not taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

2009

Sean Lane filed a settlement as a plaintiff for a $9.5 million payment. Facebook was able to succeed in winning the case by terminating the Beacon program. The money wasn’t awarded to users who were badly affected. That same year, the lawsuit between Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins was settled through a payment of $20 million and 1.25 million shares.

2011

Another lawsuit was dismissed.

2014

A personality app made by Dr. Aleksandr Kogan allowed him permission to access data people used on Facebook.

2016

Donald Trump used Cambridge Analytica for his presidential campaign. The company is known for using data to manipulate people’s behavior.

2017

The Paradise Papers were released. 13.4 million confidential documents were leaked to German reporters  Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer[1]. Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II both had financial affairs in these documents. 

2018

Users claim that videos they thought they deleted were still present in Facebook’s archive. This ties back into the Blackberry case. Blackberry is suing the company for patent infringement. They stated that Facebook has been infringing on intellectual property. General Counsel Paul Grewal says that Blackberry has “abandoned its efforts to innovate”. However, the company says that they have respect for Facebook and want to partner with them.

Zuckerberg has claimed that the Cambridge Analytica case has been a “major breach of trust.” He will face tremendous financial consequences if he loses this case. 50 million people have been affected deeply by this situation.