

Privacy Lawyers Sell Out Facebook Users for $10 Million - grellas
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/sponsored-stories-accord/

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droithomme
Should also be mentioned this was a class action lawsuit.

I've observed that class action lawsuits usually benefit the defendant greatly
in that the nature of class action suits is that they deprive any persons with
standing from all future legal actions on a matter. Sometimes they get nothing
as part of a settlement, other parts they receive some token coupon that
usually has restrictions to make it useless. In no case is the opinion of the
members of the class taken into consideration, nor do they have any right to
object to settlements, nor are they normally informed of the settlement until
after it has taken place.

In effect, it's a similar protection scheme to how Congress passed a law
banning the filing of lawsuits against BP in return for them paying a fine for
oil spillage that is vastly below the cost of fixing the damage.

Many actions that are labelled as "settlements" or "fines" are actually bribes
paid to the legal system in return for total immunity from future lawsuits.

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JoshTriplett
Another major problem with class action suits: juries, judges, and lawyers do
not have any particular immunity to scope insensitivity. A jury can evaluate
the harm done to an individual or small group, and often determine a
reasonable (or excessive) amount quantifying that harm. However, they cannot
easily evaluate the total harm done to a very large group, and select an
amount proportional to the actual harm done. Hence the frequent occurrence of
class-action lawsuits that result in miniscule payments to each member of the
class, after dividing; an $x million payment might have sounded "about right",
but not when the class has $y members in it and $x/$y falls several orders of
magnitude below the harm done to each member of the class.

I wonder if this problem would improve if judgments always expressed an amount
per member of the class, rather than a total amount?

~~~
zeroinfish
I don't believe scope insensitivity is a major factor in class action awards.

Believe me, class action plaintiff attorneys are not falling victim to any
psychological quirk that makes them underestimate what the size of the verdict
should be. They get paid based on the size of the verdict and are therefore
fully adept at imagining every reason why the verdict should be very large.
They make these arguments quite clear to the court, and as you say it's
frequently by attempting to couch the verdict in terms of benefit per member
of the class.

The real reason for small awards is that most of these large cases end in
settlements, not verdicts. And plaintiffs have an incentive to settle for much
less than the full value of their claim. This is because there is risk
(usually quite a lot) in taking a case to trial, so you must discount your
expected verdict by the risk you will lose at trial and get nothing.

In addition, it's very hard to prove damage in class actions. You need to show
that all members of the class (or at least large groups) suffered very similar
damage. If damages vary by individual, then individual proof is required (this
makes sense, part of a case is proving your damages) and you will lose your
right to proceed as a class action. If that happens, it's basically like
coming away with no money, so plaintiff lawyers can't always claim every
dollar that might be on the table. They stick to the claims that they can
apply on a class-wide (or close) basis.

Ultimately settlements are about taking a sure deal for less money rather than
taking a risk to try to get the full amount you believe you are entitled to.
That's the way settlements work, and that's often a good deal for the class.

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olivercameron
This is obviously very troubling for Facebook, considering that Sponsored
Stories appear to be their main effort to monetize mobile.

It's especially troubling because this is yet another breach of privacy on
their part. People liking pages or apps don't expect to be spokespeople for
these companies, so showing my name next to an advertisement is disingenuous.
It's made even worse that this is opt-out, and my name is displayed on sites
other than Facebook[1].

There is going to be hundreds of millions of people who will never even know
that they're recommending products to people, and that's bad.

1\. [http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/22/3110645/facebook-ads-on-
zy...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/22/3110645/facebook-ads-on-zynga)

~~~
fleitz
It's not troubling at all, this setting will be buried in the bowels of the
privacy page. 1% of users will actually opt-out.

"There is going to be hundreds of millions of people who will never even know
that they're recommending products to people, and that's bad."

Why? Exactly what is the moral outrage that when a person 'likes' Starbucks
that that information is displayed to their friends? What did they think was
going to happen?

~~~
extension
Since they are not told, in any reasonably accessible way, what is going to
happen when they click "like", they have grounds to complain about anything
that does.

~~~
MichaelApproved
You have to assume anything you do is public and can be used in anyway
possible, unless you've been told otherwise.

Right or wrong, that's the nature of these things.

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jfoutz
That's not entirely true. I don't think "You ass anything you do is pubic" is
a valid MichaelApproved quote. Now, i don't know how you could misrepresent a
like, but i don't think substantial misrepresentation (like my ridiculously
juvenile example) is allowed.

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dctoedt
_Ten million_ in legal fees? I wonder what that works out to per hour. Sounds
like entrepreneurial lawyering at its "best."

It's hard to dispute, though, that entrepreneurial lawyers like this have
sometimes forced socially-beneficial changes. In some of those cases, the
changes might never have happened otherwise: Businesses have powerful
incentives to focus on short-term profits; in a divided government, our
elected- and appointed officials find it difficult to implement reforms of
almost any kind. As a result, ginormous legal fees to entrepreneurial lawyers
might be the (exorbitant) price we have to pay to have this alternative
mechanism for reform.

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WiseWeasel
This might turn out to be a good way to get free advertising on FaceBook:

1) Register FB account [name]_[company name], with your company's logo,
product feature or offer as your profile pic. You'll probably need a bunch of
friends for this to work, real or fake.

2) Like every other company in existence, or at least the ones spending money
on these sponsored ads.

3) Have your free ads displayed all over FB, sponsored by the company you
liked.

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micaeked
3a) to your fake friends

~~~
WiseWeasel
Well crap, that pretty much ruins my dreams. Back to the drawing board...

New tactic:

1) Be a social butterfly and get as many FB friends as possible.

2) Sell profile pic and public bio placement to a company wanting cheap
advertising.

3) Like every company on FB.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
I was approached last summer by an (unnamed because I'm not a _complete_ tool)
company trying to co-opt the advertising power of users from facebook, i.e.
they'd pay you three bucks to give them control of your status for a day.

To make a long story short, they apparently ended up dropping the idea, as
their site is now back in GoDaddy's clutches.

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idiot_
Class actions are not about rounding up plaintiffs so you can shakedown
BigCorp. That's only what enterprising American lawyers have made them. And
that's what the public sees. Class actions are supposed to be about jusdicial
efficiency. If enough plaintiffs all file suits with the same claims in the
same court against BigCorp, the court is going likely to refuse to hear each
one individually. Too much work. Courts are staffed by people who are lazy
just like you and me. In nerd speak, developers do not keep answering the same
questions again and again. They create FAQ's. The court will be more receptive
to all these repetitive suits against BigCorp if the suits are filed as one: a
class action. The court hears one case, and reduces its workload.

Given that we now have the means to easily coordinate group action via
internet, e.g. group buying, crowd sourcing, etc., what's to stop people from
coordinating group litigation. If enough people invidually file suits against
Facebook with the same court, it leaves that court little choice but to
encourage a class action. Companies like Microsoft can make you agree not to
join a class action, but they can't stop you from filing a suit on your own
for any and every claim. And if enough customers file the same suit in the
same court, a class action may well be the result, even though the customers
never sought to join one. And that's because class actions are not about
shaking down BigCorp by rounding up plaintiffs. They are about reducing the
workload of the court and the expense of hearing numerous suits all with the
same claims and facts.

If a large contigent of Facebook users all resolved to sue Facebook at the
same time in the same jurisdiction, _individually_, the results could be very
interesting.

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maxko87
I don't see exactly how this is a violation of privacy, since the same friends
that see your advertisements can go to your About page and get that same
information from your list of likes.

~~~
hackinthebochs
There is no privacy violation here. This is simply people looking for reasons
to hate facebook grasping at straws. They're using your like to remind your
friends that you like this particular company who is doing an advertisement.
Seems like a tasteful bit of social proof if you ask me. I'm honestly
surprised facebook lost this case. They need a fresh set of lawyers.

~~~
tedunangst
They didn't really lose. Facebook just tossed them some shakedown money to go
away.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Yeah, rereading the article I realized it was the lawyers themselves that
brought this suit against facebook. Crap like this shouldn't be allowed. It
was a shakedown, plain and simple. If facebook isn't willing to go to bat for
their business practices, this is just going to continue.

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stretchwithme
The never-ending class action scam continues. Lawyers find a reason to shake
down a company, the company pays them off, the defendants get nothing of value
as damages.

How about making lawyers get paid based only on cash paid to defendents?

scam over.

easily addressed ripoffs like this go on for years, as the people we elect
continue to ignore our interests.

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andrewcooke
related - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4146876> \- links to
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9348662/Faceb...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9348662/Facebook-
forced-to-allow-users-to-opt-out-of-adverts.html)

