This was a class action lawsuit filed against Facebook (META) for anyone who had a Facebook account from between 2007-2022 in the U.S. This was in relation to the company having allowed the sharing (selling) of users personal information with 3rd parties (the biggest being related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal). This one is separate from the recently settled shareholder lawsuit over the companies data privacy handling practices. I was a Facebook shareholder from 2012-2020.
When I received the initial letter regarding this lawsuit, I initially just chucked it on the side because I knew whatever amount would be a small token. In class action lawsuits like this, the attorneys reap the most. In this case where the total settlement ended up being $725 million (a joke given not only the money Meta ended up making, but also the damage it inflicted to what was an already long messed up political system in the U.S.), the lawyers are getting $181 million. After all of the administrative and legal fees are subtracted, the remaining amount is then divided up. The eight named plaintiffs of the settlement class (who represent the rest of the class action), will receive $15,000 while the anyone who filed a claim and is confirmed, determines the remaining split of that settlement fund.
I decided to file a claim out of principle and out of my complete despise of everything that the company and executives like Mark Z(F)uckerberg represent (outside of this, I normally don’t bother). We now know that 28 million claims were filed with 17 million of those claims confirmed as being valid. The total age of that account then determines the payout for each individual (one point is awarded for each month of that Facebook account from May 2007 – December 2022). The average payout was estimated to be around $30. My token amount was deposited recently and I laughed humorously at the e-mail.
The amount would’ve been higher had my account not been de-activated years prior to December 2022. The $8 billion shareholder lawsuit which was settled back in July 2025 (before it was scheduled to head to trial), was not a class action lawsuit (it was instead a derivative lawsuit by shareholders for the companies continued poor handling of privacy related matters). There are currently no details on what this settlement involves since it does not award damages to the shareholders and users (it usually results in corporate governance reforms/other such actions against the leadership that were part of the problem with how the company handles the privacy of its users). Safe to say, all of that will drag on for years.
