Meta offers $37.5m to settle location tracking lawsuit
- Reference: 1661296806
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/23/meta_location_lawsuit_settlement_offer/
- Source link:
Plaintiffs said they had turned off location tracking for the Facebook app downloaded on their iOS and Android smartphones, but were shocked to find the company had repeatedly recorded their whereabouts and logged their specific latitude and longitude coordinates anyway.
Brendan Lundy and Mariah Watkins, both residents of Colorado at the time the lawsuit was filed in 2018, said they discovered the data when they requested a copy of their personal records held by Facebook. The information was used to send users targeted ads, the lawsuit alleged.
[1]
"Facebook accessed and stored user' detailed location information-through their devices' location services – even when they did not affirmatively agree to, or expressly opt out of, Facebook accessing and storing their location data," the original complaint [2][PDF] claimed.
[3]
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"Facebook used this location information to significantly benefit itself – to the tune of millions of dollars from increased advertising revenue – at the expense of its users' privacy rights.
A second class-action lawsuit led by a separate group of plaintiffs accusing Facebook of inferring location data from IP addresses was added to the case. Meta's attempts to get the lawsuit dismissed failed, and after a legal review of over 100,000 pages of internal documents the company's lawyers have chosen to cough up $37.5 million to settle the case.
[5]Meta agrees to tweak ad system after US govt brands it discriminatory
[6]Facebook is one bad Chrome extension away from another Cambridge Analytica scandal
[7]Facebook overpaid FTC fine by up to $4.9bn to protect Zuckerberg, lawsuits allege
[8]You better have patched those Log4j holes or we'll see what a judge has to say – FTC
The proposed settlement
[9]PDF
covers all Facebook users living in the US between January 30, 2015 and April 18, 2018, who turned off location services tracking on their smartphones at any point during that period, but whose information was collected nevertheless by Facebook for advertising purposes. An estimated 70 million netizens can claim damages from the $37.5 million fund, which works out to be about $0.53 per person.With Facebook reporting profits of over $39 billion in 2021, the settlement will cost Zuck and Co about eight hours of annual profit. A California judge will now have to decide whether or not to approve the settlement.
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After the payments of costs for administrative fees have been subtracted, class members will be able to submit claims via an online form on a settlement website. All $37.5 million should be distributed to the members. "In no event shall any portion of the Settlement Fund revert to Meta," the court documents state.
Facebook denies the allegations and all wrongdoing; a representative from the company declined to comment. ®
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[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/08/23/fb_lawsuit_class_action.pdf
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/23/meta_settles_lawsuit_adverts/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/23/facebook_lawsuits/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/05/ftc_log4j_fix/
[9] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/08/23/fb_settlement_location.pdf
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[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: And again
The lawyers for the class action clearly have only their own interests at heart here. After all, why would anyone affected by this illegal data grab think that their data was worth only $1.86? The lawyers will be creaming millions of the top, Meta/Facebook get a minor slap on the wrist and the punters who had their data illegally used get sweet FA.
There is no need for Meta and their ilk to stop doing this if they don't get punished properly for breaking the law. If it had gone to court and Meta lost, there would almost certainly be punitive damages too since this was almost certainly not an "accident". They can't even blame a "rogue engineer" since that person would have been an employee acting on their behalf at the time. The employer is still responsible for the actions of an employee going about company business.
" A California judge will now have to decide whether or not to approve the settlement."
If FB suggested it the judge should add at least two orders of magnitude on principle without even looking at the amount.
And then go "well, one more would be about a year of profits, and that seems kind of fitting so lets do that"...
Unfortunately
That's the way the system works. Lawyers set the settlement high enough to pay their exorbitant fees.The judge, who is also a lawyer, approves them. And everybody goes away happy.
Except for the victims.
"Facebook would lose about eight hours of annual profit."
And how exactly is this different from losing eight hours of its daily profit?
$1 per class member
From the linked proposed settlement [PDF].
" 34. If the case had gone to trial, Plaintiffs likely would have been limited to nominal damages, which are frequently set at $1 per class member. Mission Beverage Co. v. Pabst Brewing Co., 15 Cal. App. 5th 686, 710-711 (2017) (“A plaintiff suing for breach of contract is entitled to recover . . . nominal damages.”); Cummings v. Connell, 402 F.3d 936, 940 (9th Cir. 2005), as amended, 2005 WL 1154321 (9th Cir. May 17, 2005) (holding that “every member is entitled to nominal damages, just as if each one had brought his or her own lawsuit” and that damages would be limited to $1 per class member). Assuming a class size of approximately 70 million users, the settlement amount represents 53% of what Plaintiffs could have recovered under a nominal damages theory based on a judgment of $1 per class member. Plaintiffs believe this discount accurately reflects the risks of going forward with the litigation. Counsel Decl."
So Facebook set the size of the pot to (53% of $1 x the number of possible claimants) because $1 is all a plaintive would get if they brought the case themselves. Now if that is true and all a plaintive would get if they win is $1 who in their right f*!king mind would start a lawsuit? No one would!
Who would pay out lawyer's fees which they would not get back if they lost, possible not recoup even if they won, for the chance of a $1 payout. Hell even if a lawyer offered to take Facebook to court on my behalf on a no win no fee for a possible payout of $1, I would tell them to FO.
But then this class action suit like all the others is not done for victims, it is not like any of them were asked. This class action suit is for the profit of the lawyers under the guise of compensation for the victims, who never asked for them to go to court, because those victims will never see any compensation.
$0.53 is not f*!king compensation for Facebook using your data without permission. No one who opted out of that data collection would have opted in for 3 years data collection if Facebook had offered them $0.53 to.
Class action suits should banned unless they are going to give the victims a real payout (a payout that the victims would actually think about going to court for). As it stands today class action suits are instigated by lawyers for the benefit of those lawyers. It is just a f*!king scam.
And again
Was never a fan of breaking these big companies up but now I am. Facebook will never stop. They only stop when they get caught, pay out then do it all again with the next project. Until people like Mark are told "Do this again and you'll serve prison time in general pop", they'll just continue.