The consultancy is forced to close its offices in the United Kingdom and the United States due to the loss of clients and the high legal costs of the scandal.
The British consultancy Cambridge Analytica (CA), at the center of the controversy over the alleged misuse of data of millions of users of the social network Facebook , has announced the “immediate” cessation of all its activities as a company.
The firm has indicated that it has been “vilified by activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising, both in the political and commercial areas,” according to a statement. A person with knowledge of the case has explained that the reason is the loss of clients and the high legal costs related to filtering.
Both CA and its parent company, SCL Elections, have begun proceedings to declare themselves insolvent in the United Kingdom , according to their note, and Cambridge Analytica also plans to begin a similar legal process in the United States .
Cambridge Analytica says that its image has been damaged by “numerous unfounded accusations” that have been spilled on it in recent months.
“The siege of media coverage has taken virtually all customers and suppliers of the company,” notes the CA note.
The political consultant suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, in March, while at the same time initiating an independent investigation to analyze the case. The document concludes that the information related to the “political activities” of the firm “is not supported by the facts,” according to the CA statement.
In images recorded with a camera hidden by Channel 4 of British television, Nix suggested to potential clients, who were actually journalists, some tactics that the firm uses to discredit politicians through the network.
As several media sources had revealed several days ago, Cambridge Analytica collected information from Facebook users in 2014 , through a third party application, to build a software program to predict and influence the decisions of the voters .
The extent of the data leakage is estimated at about 87 million Facebook users, especially from the United States, where the consultancy company earned about 15 million dollars for its work in the Trump campaign of 2016.
