If you read the settlements that come out of these lawsuits, you will pretty much always find an 8 to low 9 figure settlement (that the lawyers get a third of), maybe some superficial policy changes, and $12 checks to the supposed victims who only became victims when they randomly got an email telling them they should join the lawsuit. The only people who benefit are the lawyers.
$12 dollars is $12 dollars people wouldn't have without them. You can always opt out of a class action settlement and sue yourself if you're not happy with the terms.
But at the end of the day, the lawyers did real work, took on real risk and achieved something. They held a big tech company accountable, and that is a meaningful difference from the status quo. I don't care that they made money doing that, they should.
Is it really holding them "accountable" when the settlements are for laughably small amounts, like <1% of a single day's profit?
No one else is doing anything. So it's something.
The only people who benefit are the lawyers.
My special savings account where I deposit the settlement checks from the various tech companies that have violated my privacy or other rights disagrees.
Sometimes it's 43¢. Sometimes it's $400.
In the last three years, I've put… checking… $5,351.83 in that account because tech companies think laws and morals don't apply to them.
Saying that these lawsuits only benefit lawyers is both false and yet another lazy tech bubble cliche.
Yes, the lawyers get way more than I do. They also did 99% the work, so I don't hold it against them.
Just read the newspaper. Every time you see an article about one of these suits, check it out to see if it applies to you.
Hey at least you get to pocket all of that. Here in Europe the government keeps the money and then distributes it to the scum of the Earth. I'd rather give the money to lawyers, at least they did _something_.
>distributes it to the scum of the Earth
Who?