Did YOU use Facebook between May 2007 and December 2022? Meta likely owes you money

You may be entitled to part of a $725 million settlement that Meta agreed to pay in a class action lawsuit.

Eligible users are those who had a Facebook account from May 24, 2007 through December 22, 2022 – these individuals must submit a claim here no later than 25 August 2023.

In the lawsuit, in which Meta did not admit wrongdoing, the social media platform makes user data and data about user friends available to third parties without permission.

It stems from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, which alleged that the company misused data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts by allowing third parties access.

Cambridge Analytica had previously claimed that it only collected data from about 30 million Facebook profiles. Keller Rohrback.

“Facebook has reportedly known about Cambridge Analytica’s inappropriate data collection since 2015 and did not take action to stop the activity or notify users until March 2018,” the law firm shared on its website.

The lawsuit consolidates several filed against the company, alleging that “Facebook failed to properly protect users’ content and information from misuse or unauthorized access.”

This allowed third-party apps to “bundle and sell access to Facebook users’ private data, including to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, without users’ knowledge or consent,” the lawsuit alleges.

Meta was approved for the $725 million settlement by a California federal judge last month.

The lawsuit was submitted in 2019 by plaintiffs who claimed that Facebook not only shared basic information such as gender and age, but also their photos, videos they took, videos they watched, and words from their direct personal messages.

A settlement was reached and submitted to the court in August 2022, followed by months of negotiations until December 22, when plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary approval of the settlement.

“This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver of Keller Rohrback LLP, the law firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

The lawsuit, in which Meta did not admit wrongdoing, alleges that the social media platform disclosed user data and data about users’ friends to third parties without consent

The court held a hearing on preliminary approval of the settlement on March 2, 2023 and granted preliminary approval of the settlement on March 29, 2023.

Users who believe they are entitled to a share of the settlement can fill out a form with their name, address and email address.

The form asks if you have lived in the US for a certain amount of time and were a Facebook user.

You will also be asked to provide your Facebook usernames and phone number associated with your account.

Meta released a statement in December after the lawsuit was announced.

“Over the past three years, we have refreshed our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program,” Meta said in a statement, adding that the settlement was “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.”

In 2022, leaked documents revealed that, swinging Facebook, brass failed to track the data of its nearly three billion users, as the Mark Zuckerberg-led company continues to be scrutinized by privacy regulators.

In an internal document obtained by Motherboardprivacy engineers for the site pointed out flaws in the data management system and admitted they didn’t know where users’ data goes.

The leak came to light after the company that changed its business name to Meta came under fire for unknowingly collecting personal information from users for purposes such as targeted advertising — a currently automated practice, the employees who wrote the directive pointed out.