Years After ProPublica Exposed Vizio For Spying On Users, Lawyers Will Make Millions From Lawsuit (hollywoodreporter.com) 64
After it was revealed that Vizio was tracking customers' viewing habits and sharing that data with advertisers, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company. Now, Ars Technica is reporting that "lawyers representing Vizio TV owners have asked a federal judge in Orange County, California to sign off on [the settlement] with the company for $17 million, for an affected class of 16 million people, who must opt-in to get any money." The company "also agrees to delete all data that it collected." From the report: Notice of the lawsuit will be shown directly on the Vizio Smart TVs, three separate times, as well as through paper mailings. When it's all said and done, new court filings submitted on Thursday say each of those 16 million people will get a payout of somewhere between $13 and $31. By contrast, their lawyers will collectively earn a maximum payout of $5.6 million in fees.
Eventually, the company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission. However, this new settlement is related to an entirely separate lawsuit, one that was consolidated in federal court in southern California. This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Eventually, the company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission. However, this new settlement is related to an entirely separate lawsuit, one that was consolidated in federal court in southern California. This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
There only important part: (Score:5, Insightful)
This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
That's the important part. For these sorts of things to have any impact on corporations the punishment must be more than the profit from doing it.
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This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
That's the important part. For these sorts of things to have any impact on corporations the punishment must be more than the profit from doing it.
I would have liked it to be some multiple of what they made off it, like perhaps 3X or 5X profits are fined away. But this is a step in the right direction, so maybe as time goes on, the penalties for doing stuff like this will become increasingly painful.
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Does it matter if the people involved no longer work there?
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No. The company has a vision and plans for 1,2,5,10,20,50,100 years in the future. The people in office today are continuing the plans of those from before. While the people are not guilty, the company is and so the company is liable for the fine.
I made a big deal about this when Bank of America bought Countrywide, realized what Countrywide was doing and promptly stopped bad loans and worked to resolve the previous bad loans made. The SEC said haha no that's not enough and then fined the shit out of Ban
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No money was created here, money was simply transferred from purchasers of TVs to lawyers.
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Not out of this air, out of company coffers, which in turn came from sales of TVs. Hence money from purchasers got given to lawyers.
Money does get created out of thin air all the time, but this isn't how it happens.
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How did the purchasers manage to retain rights to money that they voluntarily handed over to retailers, and the retailers voluntarily handed over to Vizio (generously assuming that there were no additional middlemen), exactly?
They didn't.
What money, time, or modicum of effort did purchasers invest in pursuing Vizio?
None.
Of course, you're free to opt out of the class action settlement and pursue your own claim(s). You'
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Class actions are an economical way of vindicating the rights of large classes of people—and that is why big businesses don't like them. They want the latitude of ripping people off just below the pain threshold, whether they are selling goods or buying labor.
Though arbitration is its own issue, the Fe
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And that is why the Board of Directors and C-Suite should all be punished financially in addition to the company. It's the only way this kind of shit is going end. But, that will likely never happen because it would impact lawyers ability to get rich.
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What's missing.... (Score:2)
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From the TFA: "sign off on [the settlement] with the company for $17 million, for an affected class of 16 million people"
That's less than 2 bucks for you before the lawyers get their cut and I'd say 2 cents after that.
They haven't changed their habits much. (Score:3)
I was given a Vizio TV. So, yesterday I decided to install the remote control program.
THE PROGRAM WILL NOT FUNCTION UNLESS YOU ENABLE GPS LOCATION.
The excuse was so that it could locate devices and WiFi networks near you. I want it to work on exactly one TV on exactly one network. I did no provide permission, uninstalled the app, gave it a one star on the Play Store and ranted about why. I'm not the first to rant about that after a glance through.
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I'm right there with you.
I like to have a phone as a remote control mostly because my wife can lose a remote in record time and I like SOMETHING to control it with. I've mostly used a PlayStation 3 and my own Kodi server for movies, Netflix, and Hulu up until I got this Vizio that has the Netflix, Hulu, and ability to playback from my Kodi server built in.
Basically, with the completely unreasonable security requirements built into the Android app - and as I discovered yesterday lack of support for normal D
Cents not dollars. (Score:2)
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The amount of people who opt in to receive settlements affect your math.
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The key to being smart is knowing that when something doesn't make sense, it's a mistake that you're making or some information that you're missing.
So? (Score:3)
I have 5 of their smart TVs in my house. When I bought them, they came with an Android tablet, which was pretty much the only way to control the TVs at the time. My kids absolutely love those tablets. My youngest casts from the tablet to the TV, then plays games on the tablet while she watches the TV.
Vizio then released a new update to the TVs. Via a software update. they made it possible to use a standalone remote to watch Netflix, Amazon (which doesn't support ChromeCast so this was actually a net-new feature for these TVs), Hulu, etc. You needed a new remote to access these features though because the original basically had 6 buttons: power, input, channel +/-, volume +/-, and that's it. Obvious way to make a couple of bucks by selling said new remotes, right? Nope. Even though the TVs were each almost 2 years old and clearly out of warranty, Vizio generated a code per-TV that allowed you to request a free remote per-TV. Not "free plus stupid amount for shipping and handling", free as in I got 5 new remotes for the grand total of $0.00. It took about a week from when I requested the remotes to when they arrived.
Long story short, I guess I don't care if they know what I watch. Netflix knows what I watch on Netflix. Amazon knows what I watch on Amazon. Hulu knows what I watch on Hulu. YouTube knows what I watch on YouTube. I basically assume each of them are somehow selling, sharing, or using that data for ads. I just can't seem to work up the anger to be upset that Vizio was doing the same.
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Actually, now that I think about it, all they'll see is 50% of my TV viewing is via Roku, the rest being my Playstation.
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That's okay. You can not care, it was still something they were obligated to disclose as determined by law. You can assume transparency, and we should - but it should also be stated by companies what their products do since we're beyond the point of being able to manually verify these things ourselves. That's not an unreasonable requirement from consumers of any kind of product.
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Class Action Fraud (Score:2, Troll)
Class Action lawsuits are pointless; the lawyers get millions, the "class members" get a couple of bucks - MAYBE. Judges need to require that at least 75% of the money go to the class members, with much less to the lawyers.
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Actually, I'm an engineer and a conservative Libertarian. I've been involved in several of these "class actions", and an currently in "the class" for another, in which a lawyer has filed suit against a travel agent for calls to numbers on the "Do Not Call" list. The lawyer is getting several million dollars; the class members MIGHT get about 5 bucks. It's been going on for 2 years now, and I haven't seen a penny.
The settlement amount isn't enough to hurt the business, but it's a windfall for the lawyers,
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Your rights were violated (Score:2)
but the Court finds them only worth $1.00.
A court, the place one used to go to find justice that no longer exists.
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The Lawyers Aren't The Story (Score:3)
There a settlement of a lawsuit, and the lawyers collected routine fees. Since when is the lawyers getting their regular compensation the "story" or even "news"?
The story is that Vizio was spying on users and paid a settlement as a result, but one that was trivial compared to the magnitude of the violation.
Re: The Lawyers Aren't The Story (Score:2)
Sad that this actually is something worth saying (Score:2)
This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected
This is what a fine MUST be. Otherwise it is part of the operating cost, not a fine.
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Doesn't anyone do math anymore? (Score:1)