Some facebook settlement claimants get reject notices

Some facebook settlement claimants get reject notices


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You’ll have to wait a bit longer for your chunk of the $725 million that Facebook parent Meta has agreed to shell out to settle a five-year-old class action privacy lawsuit. But some people


who submitted a claim online or by mail ahead of the Aug. 25 filing deadline, including this writer, have begun receiving notices that their claims have been rejected for reasons not


adequately explained. ​ “According to our records, we are unable to establish that you are a Settlement Case Member,” reads the vague notice received via email. When people who have


submitted a claim on the settlement — relating to Facebook user data improperly shared with other companies — and haven’t received a rejection notice will be paid is still unclear. So is


exactly how much they will get. Six years after Apple admitted it had slowed down iPhone models 6 and 7 and three years after the deadline to file claims in Apple’s class action lawsuit 


passed, the company in August exhausted appeals of its $310 million to $500 million settlement. Those eligible for a share of the Facebook settlement were among millions of U.S. account


holders on the world’s largest social network between May 24, 2007, and Dec. 22, 2022. Class action attorney Danny Karon of Cleveland, owner of the Your Lovable Lawyer consumer website, had


advised people to file their claims since “It’s found money. Never mind how much or how little you’ll get. The lawyers did a good job. Go, take what they got for you.”  More than 28


million people heeded that advice, 17 million of whom were preliminarily approved, according to reporting in _The Hill._ WILL I GET A WINDFALL? Don’t count on it. How much you could get not


only depends on how many people filed claims, but the amount of time you were on Facebook during the “class period” as well as legal and administrative fees. Lawyer Kasey Sullivan, projects


associate at Bleichmar Fonti & Auld in Oakland, California, and one of the firms representing claimants, says the median payout may be around $40. Attorneys are asking for about $180


million in legal fees, _The Hill _reports. Facebook had more than 240 million U.S. users in 2022 alone. All had been eligible, but only those who filed will see any money. WHY IS THIS


HAPPENING? The backstory involves a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, which worked with former president Donald Trump on his 2016 campaign. The firm was able to obtain


private Facebook user data that could help build voter profiles. In 2018, the same year the class action litigation was filed, Facebook conceded that as many as 87 million user profiles may


have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica. WHAT IS A CLASS ACTION? The legal procedure allows one or a small number of plaintiffs to pursue a case on behalf of a larger group or


class of people. As part of this particular settlement, which is pending final court approval, Meta admitted no wrongdoing.