Google’s Privacy Settlement With Vanity Searchers Draws Opposition

The Daily Online Examiner reports on the Center for Class Action Fairness' objection to Google's privacy class-action lawsuit settlement.

The deal, which was revealed last year in court papers, calls for Google to donate around $6 million to various nonprofits. If approved by U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in the Northern District of California, the settlement will resolve allegations that the company “leaked” search users' names to publishers and advertisers via referrer headers — the information that Google automatically transmits when users click the links on the search results.

That proposed settlement doesn't do much to compensate people whose names might have been leaked, the Center for Class Action Fairness argues. The organization — which has also opposed other settlements — says the $8.5 million fund should be distributed to users, and not to nonprofits.

Plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging trillions of dollars in statutory damages on behalf of a class consisting of more than one hundred million people, and then settled it for $8.5 million, of which the class members will see not one penny,” the Center for Class Action Fairness says in court papers filed on Friday. “Instead, the entire net settlement fund will go third-party … recipients, even though it would be practicable to allow class members to recover.”

Read the full article at the Daily Online Examiner.