Facebook Settles 'Sponsored Stories' Suit For $10M To Charity 34
Reuters reports that Facebook has taken the face-saving move (and a cheap one, considering the company's market cap) of settling for $10 million — plus lawyers' fees — the lawsuit brought against it for appropriating users' names and pictures in deceptive ads. Says the linked story: "The lawsuit, brought by five Facebook members, alleged the social networking site violated California law by publicizing users' 'likes' of certain advertisers on its 'Sponsored Stories' feature without paying them or giving them a way to opt out, the documents said. A 'Sponsored Story' is an advertisement that appears on a member's Facebook page and generally consists of another friend's name, profile picture and an assertion that the person 'likes' the advertiser."
That explains it (Score:5, Interesting)
Class-y Action (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as what should have been done, giving every facebook user their share would be difficult, but I don't see why they couldn't have come to an agreement to run something like youtube's partnership program and give people who bring in a lot of business for their advertisers a kickback. Everybody else could be given a farmville cow or something (I have no idea what the new big shitty gam^H^H^H data-mining project is).
Anybody know which charity the money is going to? EFF sounds like a fine choice.
Would love to know... (Score:3, Interesting)
What charities are receiving the said money and then who owns them.
Re:Class-y Action (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Strict limit on fees: the class gets a minimum of 65% of the reward. All costs(distribution, printing, whatever) not earmarked by the judge come out of the lawyers 35%.
2. Strict parity in payments, in both kind and time.
Kind: The only way the lawyers get paid in cash is if the class is paid in cash. If the class gets $650,000 in coupons, the lawyers are paid $350,000 in identical coupons. They're welcome to sell the coupons on ebay.
Time: As in the time value of money. At no point during the payout are the lawyers paid their fees in advance of the class being paid their settlement. If a trust is established to pay out claims over a period of years (typical for medical lawsuits), the lawyers get paid incrementally as the claims are paid. If the lawyers wish to be paid up front they can securitize their revenue stream from the trust and sell it. They may get 60 cents on the dollar for it.