Appeals Court Upholds Facebook’s Sponsored Stories Settlement

Facebook Sponsored Stories ceased to exist April 9, 2014, and following a court ruling Wednesday, the years-old lawsuit over the ad unit may finally join them.

Facebook Sponsored Stories ceased to exist April 9, 2014, and following a court ruling Wednesday, the years-old lawsuit over the ad unit may finally join them.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 3-0 to reject a challenge to the $20 million settlement of a class-action suit against Facebook, which was originally presented in October 2012 and approved by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in August 2013.

The lawsuit was based on Facebook’s use of users’ photos in its Sponsored Stories ad units, and the terms of the settlement grant about $15 to each of some 614,000 members of the class-action suit, as well as $5 million for the plaintiffs’ lawyers and $2 million to nonprofit organizations and charitable groups.

According to the Mercury News, the court ruled that the $15-per-user figure was “reasonable” due to the “minimal (if any) harm suffered by the plaintiffs,” adding that the...

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