Facebook users have less than a month to claim a piece of the $725M settlement

https://www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/

by beatthatflight • 3 years ago

236 159 3 years ago

facebookuserprivacysettlement.com

beatthatflight• 3 years ago

Only have to provide all your personal details...again? ;)

bmacho3• 3 years ago

For 50 bucks I will tell you my name, birthday, credit card, ms/google/fb id, email and physical addresses.

369186222• 3 years ago

So far I've come across 2 comments by you in this thread and both are minimizing privacy concerns in an off-hand manner.

- to give that 50 bucks to me you would require some information from me. Just post it here and we'll upvote you, 'k? (You are trivializing access to such personal info. Just post it all here to prove your point.)

- blocking all those sites [your other comment] disables functionality.

taneq• 3 years ago

For 50 bucks Mastercard will probably tell me all that about you too. :P

spaniard89277• 3 years ago

Seems like a bunch of free money if you're in the US. Sadly, Im not

unnouinceput2• 3 years ago

Not even the entire US, just the ones involved in the class action one from California.

boomboomsubban5• 3 years ago

If you were a Facebook user in the United States between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, inclusive, you may be eligible for a cash payment from a Class Action Settlement.

miked852• 3 years ago

It usually takes years to get paid anything for these class actions, and then you might get a check for $5

mcny• 3 years ago

I still have not been paid for my iPhone 6 battery.

joshstrange2• 3 years ago

This is very true but sometimes it’s worth it. I got over $3K from the price-fixing eye contact settlement. Normally signing up for these things takes less than 10min and sometimes you hit big. Though in this case I’m not expecting much.

LadyCailin2• 3 years ago

I got a case of free Red Bull at one point as payment. They said I could have a check for $5 or a case of product, so I took the product lol.

geraldwhen• 3 years ago

The app development settlement was quite large: up to $25,000 per developer. I bet a lot of people here made a lot of money from that class action.

pzo• 3 years ago

It would be good that you can easily claim it but make sure that you just instead donate to some organization like EFF. For single person $5 or $35 is small money not maybe worth the hassle but for charity organization it might be a big amount of money on the table.

Just an idea for those organizations - maybe create some browser addon or more user friendly claim form to easily donate such type of claims to them.

1659447091• 3 years ago

I just cashed a $68 check from yahoo that I vaguely remember signing up for at some point in my life. I fill the forms out and never expect anything, then one day I'll get a small check out of nowhere and each time I'll be surprised by it

kmoser• 3 years ago

Still waiting for my check(s) from a Microsoft settlement back in 2006 that had something to do with NY State. No idea how much I was entitled to, but since I owned several Windows machines during the period in question it should have been enough for at least a few beers.

Brajeshwar• 3 years ago

These are typically tiny money. You get if you are visiting and used services, etc. For instance, I have gotten like $19, $5, from settlements with SafeExpress, Apple, and a few others. The check comes all the way to India (current residence) by post. I don't cash them, I just keep them as memorabilia.

zelphirkalt• 3 years ago

Domains this website wants you to connect to (withtout allowing it to, to there might be even more, if you let it load from all those domains):

    facebookuserprivacysettlement.com
    www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com
    adsrvr.org
    js.adsrvr.org
    digitaldisbursements.com
    content.digitaldisbursements.com
    fonts.googleapis.com
    google.com
    zdassets.com
    static.zdassets.com

bmacho3• 3 years ago

Domains that you block, if you don't want to connect to them:

    facebookuserprivacysettlement.com
    www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com
    adsrvr.org
    js.adsrvr.org
    digitaldisbursements.com
    content.digitaldisbursements.com
    fonts.googleapis.com
    google.com
    zdassets.com
    static.zdassets.com

No, seriously, if you don't want to connect to these sites, block them.

cromka2• 3 years ago

These two comments, in a nutshell, perfectly exemplify the Europe vs USA mentality, socialism vs libertarianism. Top down oversight vs you need to protect yourself because no one will. If only you could draw a gun at these pesky websites! /s

swarnie2• 3 years ago

Ill get the average facebook user (60+ y/o boomer) right on to identifying domain links and how to block them.

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

I remember when I started using the web "www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com" would be the only website that you would connect with.

So much crap now....

veave• 3 years ago

I received a notification on Facebook about this a couple months ago I think. But I'm not even in the US.

tmikaeld• 3 years ago

Is this real? Looks like the good old scam: Enter your payment method so that you can receive the money, we just have to charge you 20$ to verify your account.

walrus• 3 years ago

This was my first thought as well. It is linked to from a .gov website, though: https://www.cand.uscourts.gov/notices/facebook-privacy-settl...

mike_hock• 3 years ago

Give Facebook even more of your personal information to get $35. Lol no thanks.

shadowgovt3• 3 years ago

Yeah, it turns out anonymity starts to go out the window when one interfaces with the legal system.

"Right to face your accuser" and all that.

chrischen• 3 years ago

Scams via credit card are very hard to sustain due to chargebacks.

germinalphrase• 3 years ago

Pretty confident you can request a paper cheque.

gymbeaux• 3 years ago

Yeah I’ve done a few of these over the years and they always look like that/say that.

Y_Y3• 3 years ago

IF I DO NOTHING
If you are a Settlement Class Member and you do nothing, you will give up the rights explained in Question 9, including your right to start a lawsuit, continue a lawsuit, or be part of any other lawsuit against the Defendant and the Released Parties about the legal issues or factual allegations resolved by this Settlement. In addition, you will not receive a payment from this Settlement

How can I give up my rights like this?, especially with regard to a case I may easily not have heard about. I'm in this class, but wouldn't know about it if it wasn't for this post.

sdflhasjd• 3 years ago

Naturally, the deadline to opt out was 3 days ago.

LadyCailin2• 3 years ago

That’s why class actions require the assent of a judge. Because they are a compromise between getting justice for the largest number of people, and efficient handling of the cases. It’s imperfect, but so is requiring every one of the millions of individual to file their own lawsuit, or allowing the company to remain liable indefinitely.

Having said that, I assume they are required to make an honest effort to notify affected folks, I got a notification directly in my Facebook notifications a bit ago.

Y_Y3• 3 years ago

Is a Facebook notification sufficient? That seems to bear an implication that you're required to have kept using Facebook all this time, despite their misdeeds and general decline in popularity.

markdown• 3 years ago

Is this only for US Facebook users?

sidewndr462• 3 years ago

Realistically a judge is the last person who should be making that kind of decision. They are theoretically employed by the state to handle those cases, so they should be making decisions which lessen their own workload.

ribosometronome• 3 years ago

allowing the company to remain liable indefinitely.

Why is a company continuing to be responsible for its past actions problematic?

victorbjorklund• 3 years ago

Yea. In Sweden we have something similar but it is very very very limited (so in practice they are almost never used). That results in the fact that you can pretty much get away with doing small damages to a large number of people. Because each person would have to sue on their own (and in Sweden there is no punitive damages so you can only recover what damage you actually had) and it doesn't really make sense to sue a company to recover say 50 usd if you have to pay the lawyer 20 000 usd. So class actions are imperfect but I would say they are way better than not having them and needing to sue individually.

YLYvYkHeB2NRNT• 3 years ago

Let’s do something for that nickel check smh

amluto• 3 years ago

Rule 23 is the general procedure:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_23

IANAL.

JoBrad• 3 years ago

There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years.

ryan_j_naughton• 3 years ago

So long and thanks for all the fish!!

sorokod• 3 years ago

More like

It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.

sinoue• 3 years ago

Loved that book/movie!

“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

sidewndr462• 3 years ago

The same way as anything with the government. They decided you don't have rights any longer.

anonu3• 3 years ago

By opting out of the class action, you are not bound by the terms of the settlement and can pursue your own separate legal action against the defendant on your own behalf. But good luck...

batch122• 3 years ago

That deadline already passed, so you can't opt out anymore.

bandyaboot• 3 years ago

Because if there weren’t some mechanism that has the effect of severely limiting liability beyond the class action settlement, corporate interests would be unhappy. Keeping corporate interests happy trumps your rights.

www_harka_com• 3 years ago

"By submitting this Claim Form, I hereby swear under penalty of perjury that I am the person identified above and the information provided in this Claim Form is true and correct."

What if I say I've been there, but haven't. Will anything bad happen to me?

boomboomsubban5• 3 years ago

If discovered, you could face a perjury charge which carries a risk of a fine or up to five years imprisonment (I think, that's federal law but this may only be perjury under California law.)

Though, it's probably unlikely you get caught, and unless you're filing scores of forms it's unlikely they'd bother pressing charges.

exit• 3 years ago

i wonder whether a deactivated (but not deleted) account complicates submitting a claim for a "current" account in any way?

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.32...

They are estimating the payment will be around $35 per claimant. The settlement has not yet been approved; this website is performing no small amount of data gathering which the class action lawyers will no doubt use as evidence that the settlement should be approved.

There are a variety of objections. (Imagine if these could prevent the settlement from being approved by the court and the class action counsel wants to make them go away.)

Some of the objections asked not for more money but for the settlement to require Facebook to change its behaviour or to admit guilt. Some argued the settlement was just a way for Facebook to avoid further discovery. Quite a variety of feedback. Angry Facebook users.^1

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.32...

1. There's also some discussion of another website that takes a 15% cut of the claimant's settlement payment in return for the "service" the operator provides. He is objecting to the settlement because the settlement administrator is rejecting the claims he is submitting on behalf of other claimants. https://claimclam.typeform.com

boomboomsubban5• 3 years ago

They are estimating the payment will be around $35 per claimant

Is that based on the time spent using Facebook? ~5 years ago I deleted my account, would I only receive 2/3's of the amount?

statusgraph• 3 years ago

Yeah, it looks like it's pro-rated:

The Settlement Administrator will assign each Authorized Claimant one point for each month in which the Authorized Claimant had an activated Facebook account during the Class Period.

(#8 on https://www.facebookuserprivacysettlement.com/#faqs )

ldbooth• 3 years ago

I believe you deactivated your account like me.there is no option to delete last I checked. The data is intact if you reactivate.

lapcat2• 3 years ago

They are estimating the payment will be around $35 per claimant.

Where did you see that exactly? I didn't find it in your linked document.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

Page 9.

smeej• 3 years ago

The time period covered is more than 15 years. 187 months.

$35 / 187 months =18.7¢ / month

Seriously? That's all it costs to do this to people?

And it's only even as high as $35 because they're expecting the overwhelming majority of eligible members of the class won't file!

shadowgovt3• 3 years ago

Yes. Because let's be honest, what actual harm occurred? "Someone you didn't authorize to know things about you used that information to put together a political influence model that didn't work" isn't exactly irrevocable damage.

The market will not protect our privacy, nor will the law. The only thing that will protect our privacy is to stop giving the data away, and to aggressively combat attempts to harvest it without our consent at the infrastructural level, and probably to stop using the internet so much because the whole machine is one giant data collection, collation, and aggregation engine. It's what it's good at. Facebook can't take advantage of this data if their warehouses are choked with noise data or their data collection bugs are DDOS'd or nobody hires their former employees or the data just isn't there because people are living more local.

But the government? The government will not protect Americans. The theory of harm here is not demonstrated.

tspike• 3 years ago

It gets a lot more expensive when you factor in what the lawyers get paid

lostlogin• 3 years ago

I wonder how they are preventing the claiming of several payments?

orlp• 3 years ago

The requirements state "a Facebook user in the United States between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022". Is that true? What if you are a United States citizen, but not inside the United States during that period?

ant6n• 3 years ago

What if you are not a citizen, but spent some time in the US during that time? Do you need to have had residence at the time, or just an address, or is just being a tourist sufficient? Do you need to have had an account during that time, or did you need to have logged in during that time? Do you need to have told Facebook about that US address?

menshiki• 3 years ago

I was wondering the exact same.

op00to3• 3 years ago

You don’t need to be a resident to be protected by US laws. Obviously they’re talking about location and not nationality or residence.

seaman1921• 3 years ago

What if I visited the US for business/as a tourist during this period but reside in EU ? Can I still claim ?

op00to3• 3 years ago

Were you in the United States and used Facebook during that time period? If so, then yes.

rvnx2• 3 years ago

The form then says you had to be US resident

oldnet• 3 years ago

Who is user in USA when FB is american company, heh?

zerr• 3 years ago

Why US only?

calebh• 3 years ago

I filled my claim out yesterday. The form has a section for deleted accounts, so even if you deleted or recreated account you should be good to go. All you need for the deleted account is some basic info like the email address associated with the account.

asimpletune• 3 years ago

One thing I don't like about these class action settlements is there's no way to easily know if the site you're putting all your information on is legit or not. An attacker could easily make a fake site which could serve as a possible vector for future attacks.

This is really the kind of thing that should be behind a .gov TLD or something of that nature.

ajdude• 3 years ago

It's even worse when you look at their privacy policy. Who signed off on this?

https://angeion-public.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/Privacy_Policy....

pmoriarty• 3 years ago

I never believe privacy policies anyway.

I go on the assumption that anything I ever reveal on the internet will become public knowledge at some point.

8organicbits2• 3 years ago

Setting the stage for the next class action lawsuit? Joining a class shouldn't have such privacy impacts.

jtokoph• 3 years ago

There is at least a government site that links here: https://www.cand.uscourts.gov/notices/facebook-privacy-settl...

iLoveOncall• 3 years ago

Facebook links there if you may be a part of the lawsuit too. I got the notification and so did my girlfriend.

h1fra2• 3 years ago

Court should make it mandatory that the website (e.g: facebook) displays the official link on his homepage + .gov tld indeed.

paulluuk• 3 years ago

While I do agree, I can already see the trolling on the facebook/google homepage: <CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE CLASS ACTION ENTITLED: NEED HAIR PILLS? GO TO HAIRPILL.COM>

arbuge• 3 years ago

An attacker could easily make a fake site

Or hack into the legit sites themselves if their cybersecurity practices are subpar.

dheera2• 3 years ago

They also ask for my street address. Big, big, big nope.

I don't need to tell you where I sleep.

8organicbits2• 3 years ago

Presumably so they can mail you a check?

bluepod42• 3 years ago

there's no way to easily know

Usually, I go to a source that I trust such as a particular news organization or an actual .gov site in order to verify. Then, I check another source that I trust.

Definitely annoying, but it only takes a minute or two. Honestly.

It’s interesting that you say that it should be behind a .gov or a particular TLD. Have you ever tried to reclaim “lost” money/property from your state’s treasury department? Those sites usually don’t have .gov or a specific TLD either.

For example, for Massachusetts the site is https://findmassmoney.com. It does seem questionable initially lol. But it only took a minute for me to verify that this is the site that the state government site “mass.gov” links to.

I can’t word this properly now but I wonder if the purpose of the url (similar to marketing strategies) is to get as many people to go to the site as possible.

creamynebula• 3 years ago

I rather think the naming is so that as little people as possible trust the site, so less people claim the money they are entitled to.

roschdal• 3 years ago

Why United States only?

pard682• 3 years ago

The US Courts would struggle to enforce law outside of the US.

OJFord• 3 years ago

They give it a jolly good go when they want to!

imglorp• 3 years ago

$725M is about two days of revenue. Ouch, that stings! I hope they're ok and can survive to improve. /s

Seriously though, where's the punitive aspect of the system here?

https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/...

varispeed2• 3 years ago

It seems like a racket. Big corporation does what it wants, lawyers get their cut, regulators have boxes ticked, yay! system is working!

But for whom?

seanp2k2• 3 years ago

Companies, lawyers, and the government, just like always.

93po3• 3 years ago

The system was only ever designed for the benefit of the wealthy

loeg2• 3 years ago

This is a civil settlement, not a guilty finding.

Aeolun3• 3 years ago

Who accepted this settlement then? Did the Facebook lawyers investigate and find themselves not guilty?

hardlianotion• 3 years ago

What is the settlement for, scanned the page but couldn't tell.

varispeed2• 3 years ago

I never trust these things. Suppose you make a claim and you don't know you end up with a flag on your account and then months or years later they'll find a bs reason to close it as a retribution.

The system is broken, because these things are just a cost of doing business for companies violating rights. They suffer no consequences and likely any settlement or fine will just be recouped from higher fees or already being factored in.

I think these things will never change until regulators start taking it seriously. I think if Meta was forced to be closed down or had to close the part of business that caused a violation, maybe other players would have taken those issues more seriously.

anonu3• 3 years ago

For $5, $20, $40 ? nope...

pard682• 3 years ago

It won't allow you to enter a date earlier than mid 2007 for the question that asked approximately "when did you create your account".

At the bottom it says its perjury if you put any wrong info in. Facebook was around for years by then and was already successful by the earliest date they allow

eli• 3 years ago

Yes, It’s only concerned about the period starting May 2007.

lolinder• 3 years ago

Then the question should be phrased to make that clear: "When did you create your account? (Or enter May 2007 if earlier)"

You can't threaten perjury on a form like this and be sloppy in your questions. If it were a paper form I could at least annotate my answer, but here I'm stuck with the wording they use.

Pigalowda• 3 years ago

Is this worth filling out by click farms/scammers? Maybe it takes too long to fill out everything? I didn’t see a captcha to slow things down so I guess they could use bots.

qwertyuiop_• 3 years ago

What happens if you object to the settlement? To stick it to Facebook for their egregious and blatant flouting of laws.

andsoitis• 3 years ago

Not worth the effort for $35.

joker_minmax• 3 years ago

Are instagram users a part of this? Or just Facebook proper?

Aeolun3• 3 years ago

Unless you opt out of the settlement, you are automatically part of the Settlement. If you do nothing, you will not get a payment from this Settlement and you will give up the right to sue, continue to sue, or be part of another lawsuit against the Defendant related to the legal claims or factual allegations resolved by this Settlement.

So many people will lose the right to fight FB over this without ever knowing what they lost…

meltyness• 3 years ago

Hypothetically, what laws would I be breaking if I were to file claims on the hundreds of accounts I made for astroturfing in that time window?

amelius• 3 years ago

Yeah, and I'm a Nigerian prince ...

Anyway, I used a fake birth date on FB, so probably not valid anyways.

DropInIn• 3 years ago

Anything for Canucks?

mattmaroon• 3 years ago

Yeah you better sign up to get your $13 check!

latchkey• 3 years ago

I've made a few hundred just this year off 2-3 of these things eventually getting paid out. It is a nice free dinner for a few minutes of time.

fma• 3 years ago

This reminded me of a Google settlement, which we only have 2 days to claim.

https://www.refererheadersettlement.com/

I keep getting an "Unexpected Error has Occurred"...how convenient.

Jeff_Brown• 3 years ago

If I signed up for this settlement (what feels like) six months ago, do I have to do anything now?

Facebook users have less than a month to claim a piece of the $725M settlement

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