“Facebook Ordered to Compensate Users for Data Breach: Verdicts and Arguments in Germany”

The first verdicts in the matter are there, but they are not yet final: Facebook must compensate users of the social network affected by the data breach.

According to Stiftung Warentest, for example, judges in Paderborn considered fines of 500 euros each to be appropriate in two cases. In Lüneburg and Stuttgart, Meta was sentenced to pay 300 euros each. The Gießen and Zwickau district courts had sentenced Facebook to EUR 1,000 in damages and the Oldenburg district court to EUR 3,000.

These are all so-called default judgments. This means that Facebook initially did not defend itself against the lawsuits. In some cases, however, Meta has already lodged an objection and it is to be expected that this will also be done for other judgments. Finally it works in Germany alone by 6 billion euros.

Now the meta-advocates can present their point of view. The argument will probably go in the direction that the data was publicly available anyway and was only skimmed off by so-called scraping. It is not a real hacker attack, so the liability and claims for damages are not given.

Ultimately, this is a nice playing field for lawyers to let off steam. This involves the question of whether it is sufficient for damages if those affected have to fear that their data will be used for spam, virus attacks and similar threats, or whether one has to prove specific impairments as a result of the data breach.