New York: Facebook and the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica have been sued in the United States for obtaining information belonging to 50 million of the social media company's users without permission.

The proposed class-action complaint filed late Tuesday night by Lauren Price, a Maryland resident, is the first of what could be many lawsuits seeking damages over Facebook's ability to protect user data, and Cambridge Analytica's exploitation of that data to benefit President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

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"Every Facebook user has an interest in this lawsuit, and the enforcement of their privacy rights," John Yanchunis, a lawyer for Price, said on Wednesday.

The complaint was filed in the US District Court in San Jose, California, several hours after Facebook was blamed in a shareholder lawsuit filed in nearby San Francisco for the drop in its stock price after the data harvesting was revealed. Nearly $US50 billion of market value was wiped out in two days.