What The Tech: Facebook Settlement

CHARLOTTE – If you have or had a Facebook account at any time in the past 16 years, you’re entitled to part of a $725 million dollar class action lawsuit settlement.

This may sound like a late-night TV ad, but it isn’t. You don’t need a lawyer. All you need is to file a claim on a website.

Quick recap: Back in 2018, a quiz was being shared called “This is Your Digital Life”. Anyone who took the quiz shared their personal information with the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Even if you didn’t take the quiz but one of your Facebook friends did, the company scraped your information. Only, no one knew.

Facebook (now Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress and the company wasfined $5 billion for its role in the data harvesting scandal.

That landed Facebook in hot water for violating its users’ privacy. 87 million Facebook profiles were compromised.

Now, the settlement is here.

If you had a Facebook account anytime after 2007, you’re entitled to a portion of the $725million dollar settlement.

You have to submit a claim by going to the website facebookuserprivacysettlement.com There are a few questions to answer. If you deleted your Facebook account, you’re still eligiblto be part of the class action lawsuit by entering the approximate date you joined, and when you deleted your account.

How much can you expect to receive? The amount depends on the number of claims. The more people who sign up, the less your amount will be. Lawyer and legal fees will also be deducted before the final amount is decided.

Facebook will pay out to PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, direct deposit or a pre-paid Mastercard.

The deadline to join the lawsuit is August 25th and the court has scheduled a final approval hearing for early September.

If you don’t want to join the lawsuit, you don’t have to do anything.

Payments will take some time. Once the court approves the settlement at the September 7th hearing it will hear any appeals. Once appeals are heard the payouts will begin.