News: 0179219618

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Facebook Begins Sending Settlement Payments from Cambridge Analytica Scandal Soon (cnn.com)

(Sunday September 14, 2025 @11:34AM (EditorDavid) from the slow-arm-of-the-law dept.)


"Facebook users who filed a claim in parent company Meta's [1]$725 million settlement related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal may soon get a payment," [2]reports CNN , since "on August 27, the court ordered that settlement benefits be distributed."

> It's been over [3]two years since Facebook users were able to [4]file claims in Meta's December 2022 settlement. The class-action lawsuit began after the social media giant said in 2018 that as many as 87 million Facebook users' private information was obtained [5]by data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica ...

>

> Meta was accused of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties, including developers, advertisers and data brokers, to access private information about Facebook users. The social media giant was also accused of insufficiently managing third-party access to and use of user data. Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Following the Cambridge Analytica incident, Facebook [6]restricted third-party access to user data and "developed more robust tools" to inform users about how data is collected and shared, according to [7]court documents ...

>

> Any US Facebook user who had an active account between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, was eligible to file a claim, even if they have deleted the account. The deadline to file was August 25, 2023. Almost 29 million claims were filed and about 18 million were validated as of September 2023, [8]according to Meta's response in a 2024 legal document... Payments will either be sent directly to the bank account provided on the claim form, or via PayPal, a virtual prepaid Mastercard, Venmo or Zelle. Unsuccessful or expired payments will receive a "second chance email" to update the payment method.



[1] https://angeion-public.s3.amazonaws.com/www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/docs/Ex.%201-Settlement%20Agreement%20for%20website.pdf

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/13/tech/facebook-settlement-payments-privacy-breach

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/tech/facebook-cambridge-analytica-settlement-application

[4] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/04/19/2110237/facebook-users-can-now-file-a-claim-for-725-million-privacy-settlement

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/cambridge-analytica-closure

[6] https://about.fb.com/news/2018/04/restricting-data-access/

[7] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23529033/facebook-inc-consumer-privacy-user-profile-litigation.pdf

[8] https://angeion-public.s3.amazonaws.com/www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/docs/Feldman%20Appeal%200041%20FB%20Answer%20081924.pdf



The price of doing business (Score:4, Informative)

by coopertempleclause ( 7262286 )

Wow. A whole $40 for having your data passed to illicit election meddlers without your consent!

Re: (Score:1)

by Farley1 ( 10486868 )

It will cost $39.99 just to mail it.

Re: (Score:2)

by PDXNerd ( 654900 )

"Pay to the order of....Mrs Wilbur Starks.... One dollar and NINE CENTS!" [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHmXja12Vy4 [youtube.com]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHmXja12Vy4

Re: (Score:2)

by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

The penalties should scale with the size of the crime and those people who made these decisions should be held personally accountable. It's time to end the upper class shield of limited or no liability for those who profits from criminals enterprises. This is exactly what classism looks like.

Re: (Score:2)

by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

That’s one whole grocery bag today!

You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it (Score:3)

by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 )

"You have zero privacy anyway," [1]Scott McNealy [wired.com] told a group of reporters and analysts Monday night at an event to launch his company's new Jini technology.

[1] https://www.wired.com/1999/01/sun-on-privacy-get-over-it/

Re:You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it (Score:4, Informative)

by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

The date on that article is 1999. Privacy has gotten significantly less private in the last 26 years, since he said that.

Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward

yeah well dont read twitter right now

cancel culture and free speech are no longer republican issues, theyve flipped on those ideals as we all knew they would as soon as they had an oppurtunity.

they love cancelling for speech now!

Slow justice is no justice (Score:5, Insightful)

by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

The scandal broke in 2018. Facebook has been fighting this thing for 7 years. There was never a question about whether it happened, or whether they were complicit. They were simply using lawyers to tie up the settlement in court, biding their time. People have forgotten about the scandal and moved on. Nothing has changed, and now Facebook will throw a little money at it to make it go away. Meanwhile, they continue to sell your data to whoever will pay for it, having made only minor tweaks to their system to satisfy the lawyers.

Re: (Score:2)

by snowshovelboy ( 242280 )

> There was never a question about whether it happened, or whether they were complicit.

Well, given that Alexander Nix was never personally fined, I'd say are still reluctant to say Facebook and Cambridge Analytica did anything wrong at all.

Re: (Score:2)

by bussdriver ( 620565 )

It is not like they didn't find new safer ways to do similar things in the 2024 election and they probably did! You think this time they had whistleblowers to catch them this time? Everybody knows it would be so much worse for anybody who spoke out now compared to back then. Plus Russia was more involved this time around and not buying silly ads on facebook like they did in 2016... we know they did buy influencers this last time.

Re: (Score:1)

by hdyoung ( 5182939 )

This is all true, but the bar has moved way, way, wwwaaaayyyy downwards since then. When the cambridge analytica thing happened, what they were doing was shocking. Nowadays, “cambridge analytica” is a strategy that pretty much every political messaging org employs. Actually, what they did is now considered pretty tame, everyday stuff.

I’m no fan of facebook, but they’re being forced to shell out a billion dollars for something that thousands of companies and orgs are doing nowada

How do I file for my shadow profile? (Score:4, Interesting)

by chas.williams ( 6256556 )

Given that Facebook collects profiles on non-account holders, where is my settlement?

Enjoy your $30 check (Score:2)

by Chris Mattern ( 191822 )

Don't spend it all in one place.

All people are born alike -- except Republicans and Democrats.
-- Groucho Marx