An $8 billion US trial by Meta Platforms shareholders against Mark Zuckerberg and other current and former company leaders kicks off on Wednesday over claims that they illegally harvested the data of Facebook users in violation of a 2012 agreement with the U.

On Wednesday, a trial began in Delaware, where Meta Platforms shareholders are seeking $8 billion in damages from top executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Sheryl Sandberg, over alleged failures to protect user data following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook pledged to alert those users whose personal data was improperly collected by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook also posted a link to updated policies for Instagram , which it owns.

Cambridge Analytica, the political ad marketing firm that worked for President Trump and was involved in the misappropriation of 87 million Facebook users' data, is closing its offices.

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica are the two main actors in an enormous data privacy scandal that touches on the Trump campaign, 50 million Facebook users and even two presidential elections in Kenya.