Facebook’s $20 Million Cash Offer for Privacy Settlement Receives Preliminary Approval from the Federal Judge

By: Jeff Stewart  |   December 10th, 2012   |   News, Social Media

When Facebook used its users’ names along with pictures in its Sponsored Stories or ads that convert a user’s “Like” into advertisement emerging in their friends’ news feed without approval, users dragged the social networking website into the court of law by filling a lawsuit against the company.

 

As a result of this law suit, Facebook eventually had to make an offer to its users in order to compensate them for using their names and pictures without permission. The social networking website offered its users $20 million in cash to square this issue.

 

Luckily for Facebook this offer got preliminary approval from the federal judge on early last week. Earlier, U.S. District Judge, Richard Seeborg, who is hearing this case, ruled out the initial offer made to the users by Facebook originally made during the past summer. Therefore the current offer “appears to be the product of serious” talks.

 

Now this offer will go for a final approval before Mark Zuckerberg’s company distributes $20 million among its users, who were unhappy because Facebook has turned them into endorsers and spokespersons without any approval, which is a direct violation of privacy.

 

However, even if this proposed amount receives final approval from the court each user would get no more than just $10 from this huge $20 million figure in terms of damages claim linked to Sponsored Stories.

 

At this point in time the main peril for Facebook is a legal representative of public interest, who is still arguing in the court that this offer is not good enough to defend Facebook users that are below 18 years of age. He threatened that if federal judge Seeborg does not considers his concerns, he will file an appeal against his decision. Whatever the outcome, it is likely that a final solution to the matter will still take quite some time.

 

Source: Mashable