WASHINGTON — The controversy over Facebook data gathering has a Canadian backstory far older than the adventures of the young whistleblower from British Columbia who worked for the contentious firm Cambridge Analytica. Robert Mercer is the 71-year-old funder of an assortment of right-wing causes, ranging from Cambridge Analytica to Breitbart News to Republican campaigns. "That's what I liked about the Canadian Hansards data," Mercer told the 2013 conference. Mercer and Brown wound up running the fund after its founder retired. He founded Cambridge Analytica; teamed up with young researcher Christopher Wylie, a Canadian Liberal and spent millions to amass voter data, including from Facebook users.

Source: Huffington Post March 25, 2018 16:41 UTC