How big will Facebook settlement checks be? Lawyers reveal estimated payment per person

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 131 points –
How big will Facebook settlement checks be? Lawyers reveal estimated payment per person
thehill.com

How big will Facebook settlement checks be? Lawyers reveal estimated payment per person::Hoping the the massive Facebook privacy settlement is about to change your life? Don't hold your breath.

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tl;dr $30 per claim

$30 to pay you for more of your personal information, including your banking info if you chose to give it. Or personal home address.

Really? And by who?

Not Meta, as usually this is handled by an unrelated third party.

well, i can probably buy a meal or two with that so gimme the 30 bucks!!

That's a tank of gas for me so I see it as a win. I got $5 from the Equifax breach, so $30 is a quite improvement.

And the lawyers walk away with a nice $181 million dollars...

Seems fair...

I mean they did do all the work.

$181m of work?

Collectively between many lawyers since 2018?

Right, this sort of thing can involve a giant team of lawyers and paralegals pouring over documents and case law. The next big case they take on may be years away from a successful settlement (if they even get one), and they need to float on that money. That said, the top partners of the firm are definitely getting a payday.

Wouldn't be shocked if that was their business model. Trying to look up the plaintiffs it seemed like they were represented by a firm that did a lot of mesothelioma cases.

plus court fees, travel, research, office space, etc

You dropped this: /s

Who tf do you think litigated the case??

Who tf you think was ripped off?

The broader Facebook userbase, likely including the lawyers. This was years of work for many lawyers.

The real issue here is that 725 mil isn't enough of a punishment for how massive Meta is. They net more than that in a month.

No company on earth would just write off $725M. These are the sort of people who drop a business card in a fishbowl at a restaurant for a "contest" so that their lunch is a tax deductible business expense.

If Facebook made $726M selling that data though they'd do it Sun-Sat. Hell if they made $725M and the math figured they had a 49.9% chance of getting caught they'd do the same again.

Unfortunately, this is the best our legal system has for punishing companies. It hurts them in the thing that they love the most, which is something. Then the lawyers get a payday and the average person in the class action gets a small slice of what's left.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


(NEXSTAR) – Hoping the the massive Facebook privacy settlement is about to change your life?

Facebook parent company Meta recently agreed to pay $725 million to settle claims it violated users’ privacy by sharing their data with third parties.

In a court hearing on the lawsuit Thursday, class counsel revealed more than 28 million claims were filed before the deadline passed in August.

After attorneys’ fees and administrative costs, the settlement amount is still huge – but it won’t feel that way to the average person.

Because there are so many eligible recipients, lawyers for the plaintiffs told Judge Vince Chhabria they expect the median payment to be around $30.

On Thursday, Judge Chhabria gave the lawyers representing the plaintiffs another week to file some additional documents with the court.


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Shit. I got $400 off them not long ago for the Illinois privacy class action.

1 more...

Does it apply to non-US citizens ?

No, but your country can also sue and you'll get your settlement.

Every country should grab their pound of flesh.