The privacy settlement wrapped up allegations that Facebook continued to track users’ web activity despite being logged out of the site
A California federal judge has given final approval to a $90 million settlement resolving consumer privacy claims against Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc, spurning an objection to the deal from plaintiffs’ lawyers leading a parallel antitrust case against the social media platform.
San Jose-based U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in an order on Friday called the privacy settlement “fair and reasonable,” despite claims from a group of antitrust lawyers who said the broad sweep of settlement terms jeopardized their case.
Davila also upheld an award of about $26 million in legal fees over other objectors’ challenge to the amount.
The privacy settlement wrapped up allegations that Facebook continued to track users’ web activity despite being logged out of the site.
The antitrust lawsuit, pending before a different judge in California federal court, accused Facebook of exploiting its users’ information to curb competitors.
Facebook denied the privacy claims, and the company is fighting the allegations in the antitrust case.
In the antitrust case, plaintiffs’ lawyers at Hagens Berman and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart had asked Davila to include a sentence saying the resolution of the privacy settlement doesn’t impact the antitrust litigation.
Davila sidestepped the issue, pointing to Facebook’s silence on the matter. He said that ‘because (Facebook) has not substantively responded to whether the action’ would be resolved by the privacy settlement terms, he declined to rule on the issue.
Davila’s order noted that lawyers for Facebook, represented by Cooley, at the fairness hearing in the privacy case declined to say whether the settlement affected the antitrust litigation pending before U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco.
Lead counsel for the privacy class, David Straite of DiCello Levitt Gutzler and Stephen Grygiel of Grygiel Law, called Davila’s ruling “thoughtful” and said an injunction in the case ‘benefits all class members whether or not they also submitted a claim for a portion of the $90 million settlement fund.’
Davila rejected challenges to the legal fees as excessive in the privacy case and awarded, as requested, 29% of the settlement fund, or $26.1 million. Some objectors had asked the court to award no more than 20% for fees.