09:02
Feta has been ordered to pay New Mexico a $25 billion civil penalty after a jury found it deceived users about misuse of their personal data. The ruling comes years after the data scandal behind the case.
The company is reviewing the judgment against a privacy promise that completed its commercial purpose considerably earlier.
“If people waited for our promises to be tested, they might decline them. Our model depends on that possibility arriving later.”
09:28
Feta’s response distinguishes between the company that made the assurances and the company asking to be trusted today. Both have the same name, but the latter has newer presentation slides.
The earlier assurances are now being described as historical material. The decisions users made because of them remain part of the business, rather than the history.
10:11
Marc Humanberg, Feta’s chairman and architect of its virtual-world expansion, has delivered a prepared statement asking that the ruling be understood in its proper time period.
“We needed people to believe us when they were deciding what to share,” he said. “The court has chosen to assess that belief after we have already benefited from it. These are different stages of the customer relationship.”
11:46
The company has proposed that every privacy assurance carry two dates: the day it begins encouraging people to use the service, and the day a court might establish what it meant.
Only the first date would appear during sign-up. Feta says displaying the second would be speculative, although relying on the assurance before that date would remain strongly encouraged.
13:20
Attention has turned to what the judgment can restore. A financial penalty can be counted. The moment before someone shared information on a false understanding cannot be reopened.
Feta’s proposed response is a fresh set of privacy controls. These would let users make better-informed decisions from now on, a period the company has selected because nothing in it has happened yet.
15:07
Humanberg has rejected the suggestion that customers should wait for legal scrutiny before accepting the next assurance.
“If people waited for our promises to be tested, they might decline them,” he said. “Our model depends on that possibility arriving later.”
The statement was followed by a demonstration of a cleaner settings screen. No part of the demonstration required returning to the original decision.
17:32
Feta has closed the day by moving the disputed assurances into an archive and placing its current privacy commitments beside the account-creation button.
The archive explains what the company said then. The button asks users to believe what it says now. Between them sits a judgment large enough to make history, but unable to arrive before the decision it concerns.
The inevitable…
By January 21, 2027, Feta will appeal New Mexico’s $25 billion civil penalty. The company will thus ask for more time to establish what its old assurances meant, while giving customers no comparable reason to postpone accepting the new ones.
Check back January 2027