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BGH sentences Facebook for scraping

BGH sentences Facebook for scraping

In April 2021, unknown perpetrators published data of around 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries on the Internet. Due to an error in the “friend search” function, the data could be “scraped”.

In its decision of 18 November 2024 (VI ZR 10/24), the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) established Facebook's liability for the loss of control of this data and, in principle, also an immaterial claim for damages for the users. In line with the extremely low German rates by international standards, the federal judges assume an average claim of €100.00 for the loss of control alone. In Italy, a higher amount could be expected if liability is established.