A British Columbia Supreme Court judge approved a $51 million class-action settlement between Facebook parent company Meta and 4.3 million users in four provinces.
Justice Nitya Iyer formally approved the settlement amount earlier this month. As a result, Meta is offering compensation to eligible residents of British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador for using their images without permission to advertise products in Facebook’s now-defunct sponsored stories feature.
The settlement affects any residents of the four provinces who were registered with Facebook or had a profile photo posted between Jan. 1, 2011, and May 30, 2014, according to the agreement.
A settlement was reached in November by Meta and lawyers representing class plaintiff Deborah Douez, a B.C. resident. The settlement is a compromise that allows the company to resolve the claims without any “admission of liability or wrongdoing or fault by the defendant,” according to class administrator MNP.
Affected Facebook users are now another step closer to receiving a payout from the social media giant. Lawyers for the plaintiff said most users can expect to receive between $20–$55 up to a maximum of $200.
Christopher Rhone of the Vancouver law firm Branch McMaster told Postmedia the final payment will depend on “the number of people who sign up” for a payout.
Court-approved online sign-up forms will be available in two to three months, he said, adding that take-up rates typically aren’t high for class-action lawsuits. Take-up refers to the average claim for the settlement money.
To be eligible to join the class action, a Facebook user’s account must have used his or her real name and had a profile picture that included an identifiable self-image. That image must have been used by the social media giant in a sponsored story, according to the settlement agreement.
Unapproved Endorsements
The sponsored stories case began more than a decade ago when Ms. Douez in 2012 called a lawyer after her Facebook photo appeared alongside an endorsement on the social network for an obstacle course race company. It was then that she discovered there was no way to opt out of Facebook’s sponsored stories ads. The case first went before the B.C. Supreme Court in 2014.The current class action is a result of the 2017 lawsuit filed by Ms. Douez who took issue with the social network’s former policy that a “Like” on Facebook signified permission to utilize the user’s name and photo in ads on the pages of their Facebook friends.
News of the Meta settlement approval comes the same month that a B.C. judge approved a countrywide multimillion-dollar settlement with tech giant Apple over software updates that allegedly slowed down older iPhones.
Lawyer K.S. Garcha said class members who make claims on the $14.4 million settlement can expect to receive between $17.50 and $150 each, depending on how many people submit a claim.
The settlement covers eligible residents of Canada except those in Quebec, which Mr. Garcha said could reach nine million people.
The class action, which became known as “Batterygate,” was launched in 2018 against both Apple Inc. and Apple Canada.
