Judge approves $650M Facebook privacy lawsuit settlement:
U.S. District Judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illlinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims will be affected.
[...] "We are pleased to have reached a settlement so we can move past this matter, which is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders," Facebook, which is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a statement.
The lawsuit accused the social media giant of violating an Illinois privacy law by failing to get consent before using facial-recognition technology to scan photos uploaded by users to create and store faces digitally.
[Illlinois'] Biometric Information Privacy Act allowed consumers to sue companies that didn't get permission before harvesting data such as faces and fingerprints.
A California federal judge issued final approval Friday in a $650 million Facebook class action privacy settlement, with an order to get at least $345 to each of nearly 1.6 million Illinois class members "as expeditiously as possible."
Chicago attorney Jay Edelson, who filed the initial lawsuit against Facebook nearly six years ago, said the checks could be in the mail within two months — barring an appeal over the court's decision.
[...] In April 2015, Edelson filed a lawsuit against Facebook in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of plaintiff Carlo Licata, alleging the social media giant's use of facial tagging features without consent was not allowed under Illinois privacy law. The case was moved to Chicago federal court and then California federal court, where it attained class-action status.
[...] The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act is among the strictest such laws in the U.S., and requires companies to get permission before using technologies such as facial recognition to identify customers.
The settlement class included about 6.9 million Facebook users in Illinois for whom the social network created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011. To qualify, Facebook users had to live in the state for at least six months over the last nine years.
Nearly 1.6 million claim forms were filed by the Nov. 23 deadline, representing about 22% of eligible Illinois Facebook users.
Out of the $650 million Facebook agreed to pay, Donato awarded $97.5 million in attorneys' fees and about $915,000 in expenses. The court also awarded $5,000 to each of the three named plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The rest is to be distributed to all class members equally.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 02 2021, @03:08AM (4 children)
Facebook gets to pay chump change and carry on the privacy abuse as if nothing happened.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 02 2021, @04:13AM (3 children)
Is 97E6 paid to the attorneys "chump change" for the work they did in bringing the evil culprits to justice?
I'm having trouble even being mad -- that kind of money is pretty impressive.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday March 02 2021, @08:05AM (2 children)
It's a lot of money for schmucks like us, a nice bonus worth having a celebratory dinner over for a power lawyer, and it's peanuts for Facebook.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02 2021, @04:26PM
After the lawyers are done, you'll get a coupon for one free login to facebook.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 02 2021, @07:52PM
A "nice bonus and dinner"? I don't know anyone who could even *eat* that much cash.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02 2021, @03:41AM (2 children)
The Myanmarese fight for democracy against military coup is a worthwhile discussion post.
Would someone interested, knowledgeable submit a post? It's not a simple headline news that can be easily summarized, but it's one of the important news and worthwhile topics in the world right now.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02 2021, @04:22AM (1 child)
Wasn't Aung San Suu Kyi permitting a genocide on her watch? Military rule is the norm for Myanmar. They just decided to remove the figurehead.
Looks like 18 protesters were just killed by soldiers. How about a foreign military intervention to patch things up?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 02 2021, @04:39AM
"Ethnic cleansing" of rohyingias is probably more apt term, for what that's worth, and even then, it was driven by the military who hold the real power, not suu kyi, not to excuse her role as an accomplice in the affair.
There is a bit of history of rohyngias, ethnic Bengalis that migrated into the region during WWII/British Raj era, and Myanmareres. During WWII, the Burmese tried to drive off the British colonialists, and Rohangyas for the British against the Burmese. Burmese was helped and encouraged by the Imperial Japan, who wanted to drive off the British. Myanmar/Burma herself is a multi-ethnic state of many groups, including Muslims. So it's rather complicated.
Military intervention is difficult. There is a suspicion that CCP China, neighboring country, is backing the military. You know the saying, don't get into a land war in Asia.