A proposed settlement in a lawsuit brought against Facebook over its controversial "Sponsored Stories" program has been rejected by a federal judge who expressed concerns over the terms.
The settlement would have led Facebook to pay $10 million to the lawyers bringing the case against it, and another $10 million to charity, according to a report from
Wired. However, the judge wondered why the payment wasn't significantly larger, and implied it was more or less a payoff for the lawyers involved.
In all, the deal would have allowed Facebook to continue using the Sponsored Stories program, but required it to let users "limit" their involvement, the report said. However, 100 million users have already been affected by the program, and under California law, each would be entitled to as much as $750 each. The social network has said the deal would cost it about $100 million in advertising revenues, which made critics of the $20 million settlement dubious.
Eduard Goodman, the chief privacy officer for
Identity Theft 911, has a blog about how consumers can increase their protection on social networking sites.
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