Meta's former COO banned from deleting emails, case related to Cambridge Analytica

Meta social media giant former Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg has been punished by the court for deleting some emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy case. It's worth noting that Sheryl Sandberg was requested to keep those emails safe. Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of the Delaware court said that evidence shows that Sandberg created an email account using a fake name and had already deleted some of those emails, which may have been related to the stakeholders of the case.

Because of the ban, when Sheryl Sandberg takes her turn in an eight-day, non-jury trial scheduled for April, presenting her side and avoiding liability will be even tougher. The judge also ordered Sheryl to pay the expenses related to the sanctions proposal made by shareholders. However, Sandberg has already deleted some emails from her Gmail account, so it is feared that important and sensitive information related to the case has already been lost. There has been no comment from Meta or Sandberg yet on the court's ban on Sheryl.

This case dates back to 2018 when Facebook was accused of allowing Cambridge Analytica to access millions of users' data. Cambridge Analytica is a political consulting firm that worked on Donald Trump's campaign for the US presidency in 2016. The company's directors and officers were accused of harming investors by using users and violating a 2012 consent order with the Federal Trade Commission.