About 17 million people have been verified and validated to receive a payment of up to $345 from Facebook. The payment is part of a class action lawsuit settlement that the social network must pay out to millions of users who used Facebook in the country over the last 16 years.
The amount of $725 million is what the platform, owned by Meta, has to pay for violating the privacy policy by sharing private data without prior consent.
The most claims in history
The number of claims filed to date (around 28 million) is the highest number recorded in the country's history. According to Lesley Weaver, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs:
As far as we can tell that’s the largest number of claims ever filed in a class action in the United States.
Keller Rohrback, another one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told the Washington Post, "It's the largest settlement ever of a privacy class action in the United States."
The lawsuit against Facebook was for violating the privacy policy
The reason why Meta must pay up to $345 to users is based on a lawsuit filed by representatives of a user group who alleged that Facebook allowed third parties to access users' account content and information and that it did not control how those third parties used that data, according to AP.
The company responded to the lawsuit by denying the allegations, but, in order not to go to trial, accepted a settlement last December, to avoid both the high cost of the process and the risks associated with keeping the case open.
What do you have to do to benefit from the payment?
At Voz Media, we reported a few months ago what users had to do to claim part of the settlement payment.
Karina Yapor, executive producer at Voz Media, interviewed Juan Guevara, an expert in social media. He told people to go to the website and, to avoid fraud, request that the money be sent to them through PayPal, Zelle or Venmo. He recommended that users not, under any circumstances, request their payment by direct deposit or prepaid Mastercard.
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