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Saurabh Cloudas
And there have been many opportunities to do so. After a series of large opioid settlements, 2022 had the most billion-dollar class-action settlements in U.S. history apart from the tobacco settlements decades ago, according to a report from the national law firm Duane Morris. The stakes are high for class-action lawsuits at this level, as they set standards for corporate responsibility in areas such as data privacy, employee discrimination, securities fraud and civil rights.
In many cases, class-action lawsuits offer such a minor payout to each victim that participation is a matter of principle, not reward. But even if you receive only $10 to $20 as compensation, joining a collective lawsuit can help other customers or employees get justice, and may deter a company from harmful practices in the future.
Class-action lawsuits can also take anywhere from a few months to several years, which can be an excessive commitment for many. The Exxon Valdez oil spill, for example, took 17 years to reach a class-action settlement.
The settlement was reached with Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. following a lawsuit, which alleged Facebook made users' data available to third parties without their permission and claimed the platform did not monitor or enforce third-party access to the data they received. That includes the collection of data by now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which went on to be used for political advertising on the platform.
An email sent to Facebook account holders said that the change affects individuals who deleted one or more Facebook accounts in the class period of May 24, 2007 and Dec. 22, 2022 before creating a new Facebook account in the same period.
In addition to providing some personal information, as well has the preferred method of payment, class-action members will be asked to submit their Facebook username, along with any phone numbers and email addresses associated with the account.
Each eligible claimant will be assigned "one point for each month" they had an activated Facebook account during that window. Once the total number of claimants and their points have been determined, along with the total settlement fund amount, each person will then receive a designated amount, multiplied by their total number of points.
A Netflix customer who says he was promised a $7.99 per month subscription fee for the life of his account is suing the streaming giant for increasing its prices, according to a proposed class action lawsuit filed Wednesday in California federal court.
AT&T on Saturday said it doesn't know if the massive data breach "originated from AT&T or one of its vendors," but that it has "launched a robust investigation" into what caused the incident. The data breach is the latest cyberattack AT&T has experienced since a leak in January 2023, that affected nine million users. By contrast, Saturday's much larger breach impacts 73 million current and former AT&T account holders. AT&T has seen several data breaches over the years that range in size and impact.
The data breach prompted an Ohio man to file a class-action lawsuit against AT&T, accusing the telecommunications giant of negligence and breach of contract. Lawyers representing Alex Petroski of Summit County, Ohio, argued that the cyberattack could have been avoided and that AT&T's security failed to protect customer data.
AT&T said Saturday that a dataset found on the dark web contains information such as Social Security and passcodes. Unlike passwords, passcodes are numerical PINS that are typically four digits long. Full names, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and AT&T account numbers may have also been compromised, the company said. The impacted data is from 2019 or earlier and does not appear to include financial information or call history, it added.
AT&T hasn't disclosed details about its investigation into the data breach, but it is likely to be time-consuming and costly, according to Kevin Powers, the founding director of the Master of Science in Cybersecurity Policy and Governance Programs at Boston College.
The company will most likely bring in outside computer forensics specialists who will work with its on-site IT staff to determine exactly when and how the hackers got into the customer account information system, Powers said. But identifying the hackers' path of entry will be a big challenge for such a large company.
"You don't know where it came in from," Powers told CBS MoneyWatch, referring to the source of the breach. "It potentially could be from a customer or it could have been done from one of their outside contractors or someone else along their supply chain."
In addition, AT&T will have to scrub any malware out of the software that runs its customer account system, while also keeping the system running for customers who weren't impacted, he said. All these steps will have to be shared with lawyers, the outside consultants, and likely officials from the Federal Trade Commission.
If you receive a notice about a breach, it's a good idea to change your password and monitor your account activity for any suspicious transactions. The Federal Trade Commission offers free credit freezes and fraud alerts that consumers can set up to help protect themselves from identity theft and other malicious activity.
Now, imagine all the ways the above scenario could end up as the subject of an investigation or litigation. Maybe the information you were sending a colleague included material, nonpublic information about your company and her meeting the next day just happened to involve some hot stock tips. Or maybe that information included corporate secrets that later leaked to the competition. Maybe your colleague filed a class action suit against your employer, alleging that she had wrongly been denied payment for her regular late-night work sessions. You get the idea.
Suddenly, each personal device is a potential source of discoverable ESI. But they are also largely personal devices, full of sensitive information that has no connection to the issues underlying the litigation or investigation. A battle over discovery could be on the horizon.
One of the threshold issues to consider when seeking discovery into information on personal devices is whether those devices are actually under the control of the producing party. Courts have developed three standards for determining whether ESI on third-party devices is within the possession, custody, and control of a producing party. These are the legal right standard, the legal right plus notification standard, and the practical ability standard.
To keep us on our toes, courts are not always consistent in which standard they apply, as a review by the Sedona Conference Working Group One shows. District courts in the Fourth Circuit have applied both the legal right plus notification standard and the practical ability standard, for example, while those in the Sixth have applied both the legal right standard and legal right plus notification standard. Courts in the Tenth Circuit, perhaps staying true to their Wild West origins, have applied all three standards.
Despite the complications discovery into personal devices can raise, one thing is clear: As the walls between work life and personal life erode, discovery into personal devices becomes increasingly unavoidable in a wide range of legal disputes. The days of limiting discovery to corporate email are quickly coming to a close, their demise caused by the diversification data sources, from smartphones to backyard drones, and a growing range of data types, all holding information that could be potentially relevant to litigation.
Google agreed to pay $23 million to settle a 2013 class action lawsuit accusing the tech company of violating user privacy. Google denies the allegations that it shared user search terms with third-party websites, and the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing.
Anyone who executed a Google search between Oct. 25, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2013, and clicked on a link in the search results can collect part of the settlement. If you want to participate, you have to file a claim by July 31.
When you have your ID number, you submit a claim by providing your contact information, including your address and email. To opt into the settlement, you have to agree that you searched on Google and clicked one of the resulting links within the stipulated timeframe.
Keep in mind that Google is the world's largest search engine. While the company doesn't share its search volume data, anyone in the world with internet access can use it. Administrative costs like lawyer fees are also subtracted from the net settlement fund. All things considered, claimants shouldn't bank on a big payout.
A final approval hearing for the settlement is slated for Oct. 12. If there are any appeals, they have to be resolved in favor of the settlement before claimants will see their money, according to the website. Keep checking the settlement site for updates on payments.
In addition to overseeing the day-to-day accounting and GAAP compliance for DSE, Anita also manages the financial operations for DSE including forecasting and budgeting, preparing and analyzing financial reports, monitoring and implementing internal controls, and coordinating the annual audit and tax related matters.
She began her career in media and entertainment as a production assistant in Tokyo, Japan, before getting her accounting degree and joining the audit practice at Deloitte in Los Angeles. In an effort to walk the fictional streets of Stars Hollow (which she did) and catch glimpses of her favorite TV and movie stars (which she also did!), she transitioned to entertainment accounting and finance at Warner Bros. Studios and The CW Network before joining Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
Ellie has more than twenty years of retail centered experience and is a proven expert in retail strategy, in-store marketing, sales, operations, and business analytics. She holds a B.A in Business Administration from Loyola Marymount, Los Angeles with an emphasis in marketing.
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