Learn How to Claim a Monetary Settlement for Facebook Privacy Violations If You’ve Used the Platform in the Past 16 Years
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has reached a settlement of $725 million related to privacy violations that took place over the last 16 years. Users who have used Facebook during that time frame in the United States can claim a portion of the settlement by filling out a claim form on a designated website. The lawsuits that led to the settlement were brought about by Facebook users who alleged that the company shared their data with third-party sources, including advertisers and data brokers, without their consent. The legal battle started in 2018 when Facebook was caught in a privacy scandal with Cambridge Analytica, which had scraped user data from the platform to profile voters.
The newly created class-action website indicates that Meta has denied any wrongdoing or liability under the settlement. Nonetheless, eligible U.S. residents who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, can submit a monetary claim before August 25, 2023.
If you are one of the eligible Facebook users in the United States and want to claim money under the settlement, you can do so by filling out the claim form on the designated website or printing out the form and mailing it to Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, c/o Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
To complete the form, you will need to provide basic information, such as your name, address, email, phone number, and whether you resided in the United States between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, and if you were a Facebook user during that time. If you deleted your account during that time frame, you will need to specify the date range when you were a Facebook user, your Facebook user name, and the preferred payment service, such as PayPal, Venmo, or a prepaid Mastercard.
Completing the claim form should only take a few minutes of your time. The settlement amount per user will depend on how many people file a claim, according to the settlement website, so the exact amount of compensation is unclear. Also, the claims site notes that the settlement is subject to a final approval hearing on September 7, where the court will decide whether to approve the deal and award attorneys’ fees and other costs. If approved, the settlement may still face appeals that could take an unknown amount of time to be resolved. The settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible if the court grants final approval and after any appeals are resolved.
Source: Facebook users can now claim settlement money. Here’s how. – CBS News