With the attorney generals of more than 40 states teamed up and alleging that a multi-billion dollar company's product is addictive and harming youth, the stakes couldn't be any higher.
That was the situation in 1998, when Philip Morris, along with several other of the world's largest tobacco companies, ended years of litigation with 46 states through a master settlement agreement that has now resulted in more than $200 billion in payments. Nearly three decades later, a burgeoning legal battle looks strangely familiar—this time with the internet’s social media giants in the role of Big Tobacco.
