- Current or former Facebook users can now submit a claim to a $725 million class action settlement.
- Facebook agreed to the settlement for allegedly sharing user data with Cambridge Analytica.
- The final hearing is set for September 7, and payments likely will be distributed sometime after.
Anyone in the US who’s had a Facebook account in the last 15 years can now submit a claim for their share of a $725-million settlement from the Cambridge Analytica privacy-class action lawsuit.
Current or former Facebook users can submit claims through a website for the lawsuit by the August 25 deadline. The exact payment amounts per person will depend on how many claims are submitted.
A hearing is scheduled for September 7 when a judge is expected to approve the final details of the settlement. Unless other appeals are filed to delay the case, the site says the court will approve the settlement, and payments “will be distributed as soon as possible.”
Anyone who lived in the US and had a Facebook account from May 24, 2007, through December 22, 2022, is eligible to submit a claim, even if the account is no longer active. The claim form, which takes a few minutes to fill out, asks for a name, address, and email associated with the account, as well as when it was last used if the account is no longer active.
The settlement can be paid out in a variety of ways. Claimants can choose from a prepaid Mastercard, direct deposit to a bank account, or digital payment apps like PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle.
According to the site’s FAQ section, users also can opt out of eligibility for the settlement, which would allow them to retain the rights to be involved in potential future lawsuits over the claims involved in the Cambridge Analytica case.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, agreed to the settlement in December, ending a yearslong legal battle over revelations that Facebook allowed the data of about 87 million users to be accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political-consulting firm. The firm used a personality quiz to obtain information about users and the people with whom they associated on Facebook.
The Trump campaign also reportedly worked with Cambridge Analytica to target specific groups of users with ads leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, told reporters in 2018 that the company made a mistake in trusting third-party app makers like Cambridge Analytica, and not doing more to ensure that user data was not being used improperly.
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