Bay Area-based ad agency producer Stacy McClain has joined digital studio Radium, with facilities in San Francisco, Santa Monica and Dallas, as executive producer. She will head up the San Francisco shop. McClain started her career at Young & Rubicam, San Francisco, before moving over to Goody, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, as a producer. She then became head of production at Black Rocket (now Heat), San Francisco, and had most recently been freelancing for several Bay Area agencies. Also coming aboard Radium is designer Angela Ko, who will work out of the Santa Monica studio. Ko had been working as a freelance designer/animator at such studios as Stardust, Logan, Imaginary Forces and Motion Theory….Bluerock has promoted Dana Gerolimatos to full-fledged editor. Formerly an assistant editor at the New York shop, she regularly collaborated with Bluerock cutters Laura Milstein and David Mester….Philadelphia ad agency Red Tettemer has hired Ben Mallory as its first ever interactive creative director and Ryan Blain as interactive designer. Mallory has been tasked with defining the agency’s interactive capabilities, from core functionality to pathways and overall user experience. He will work for clients such as Advanta, Comcast, Hatfield Quality Meats and kajeet, as well as on new business projects. Mallory came to Red Tettemer from Digitas Health where he was creative director responsible for Crestor. Prior to Digitas, Mallory was creative director at SFGT, Philadelphia. His career also includes stints at AOL, Casio, Commerce One, WeMedia, Zentropy Partners and TheKnot.com. Meanwhile Blain was formerly interactive designer at 160over90, a Philly marketing communications agency…..
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More