Meta Defends $725 Million Settlement to Privacy Class Action
Meta defended a $725 million class action settlement Friday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the Facebook parent urging a rejection of the opponents' arguments that the deal is inadequate.
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The class action lawsuit accuses Facebook of violating user privacy by allowing advertisers and partners to harvest user data without their consent, according to the appeal brief. The $725 million settlement was approved in 2023 despite objections outlined in the brief.
Facebook counsel Chris Chorba of Gibson Dunn noted that, when Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court of Northern California "conducted a very lengthy final approval hearing, he considered all of the objections, waived them, and approved this settlement as fair, reasonable and adequate.”
Some of the plaintiffs in the class action also support the settlement as it stands. “This is the largest privacy class action settlement to date and the most Facebook has ever paid to resolve a class action,” said Derek Loeser, a lawyer at Keller Rohrback, who spoke on behalf of the class plaintiffs who support the settlement. “Judge Chhabria conducted his own review and determined that the [value of the] settlement claims fairly accounted for the risks and challenges that the plaintiffs faced.”
Settlement opponents believe that Meta should pay consumers substantially more. “The point here is whether the district court analyzed this settlement consistent with its duties,” said Kendrick Jan, a lawyer for the appellants, including Sarah Feldman, the original plaintiff in the case. “It did not.”