‘Largest Class-Action Claim Filing in US History’: 17 Million People Eligible for Facebook Settlement Payment

The Facebook logo is seen on a cell phone, Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston. The Canadian Press/AP, Michael Dwyer

About 17 million claimants in Facebook’s $725 million data privacy settlement have passed preliminary validation, with one million others still pending review, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer.

Facebook is paying $725 million in a settlement for a class-action lawsuit in which the company was found to have shared user data without permission.

Lesley Weaver, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said on Sept. 7 that over 28 million Facebook users had filed claims for the company’s class-action settlement, but only 17 million are qualified so far.

“As far as we can tell, that’s the largest number of claims ever filed in a class action in the United States,” Ms. Weaver was quoted as saying by The Hill.

The total number of eligible claimants is yet to be finalized as there are still one million claims awaiting review. About 10 million claims have been rejected due to being duplicates or potentially fraudulent.

Eligible applicants are those who lived in the United States between May. 24, 2007, to Dec. 22, 2022, and must have been a Facebook user at any time during this period, according to the settlement webpage.

Applicants were required to specify if the claim is for a “current account, a deleted account, or a combination of both.”

It stated that the settlement class does not include people who are “directors, officers, legal representatives, alleged co-conspirators, and agents” of Facebook owner Meta or its subsidiaries and affiliates.

Lawyer’s Fee—Up to $181.25 Million

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have another week to submit additional documents before the court grants final approval to the settlement, according to the report. Any appeals related to the case may cause delays in the payment process.

The $725 million will not be directly distributed to eligible claimants. Instead, a lawyer’s fee of up to $181.25 million will initially be deducted, which brings down the settlement amount to $543.75 million.

Next, an administrative fee will be deducted to meet the cost of the administration appointed by the court to carry out the settlement process. It remains unclear how much the administrator charges. Then, the eight plaintiffs in the case will be paid $120,000.

Once all fees and other amounts are deducted, the remaining funds will not be distributed to all claimants equally. Instead, the claim amount will depend on the number of months a claimant had an active Facebook account between May 2007 and December 2022.

Meta, the parent company of social media site Facebook, has denied the allegations in the suit but still agreed on a settlement as it decided this course of action was in the best interest of the shareholders and the community, according to the company.

Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.