If you’ve received an email or news about the Facebook Internet Tracking Settlement, please know that it is legitimate & true.

You may trust in the following and take part in the proceedings, to get your piece of the settlement:

The Lawsuit

Facebook is accused of collecting user data through outside websites, and selling it to advertisers. They allegedly did this through those Facebook Like buttons that used to appear all over the web. In doing so, Facebook may have violated privacy laws and unjustly profited from all of us.

Facebook is admitting no guilt in the matter, but they are settling. In order to put this matter to bed, they are agreeing to a $90 Million settlement. It’s somewhat of a speeding ticket to a company worth $538 Billion, but so it goes…

How to Participate

You can get your share of that settlement, as long as you qualify. Consider yourself qualified if you:

  • Had a Facebook account between 4/22/2010 and 9/26/2011
  • Visited non-Facebook websites that displayed the Facebook Like button.

Don’t remember if that was the case? Those Like buttons were everywhere back then, so it is very likely you encountered them, while reading the news or checking out personal blogs or shopping online.

Here’s the website to sign up, just scroll down to the SUBMIT A CLAIM section and use the Submit Online link to get started.

Final Commentary

I notice that the Online Claim page may not load in the presence of an ad-blocker. I guess they are tracking who visits that page! If you can’t get it to load, try disabling your ad-blocker. Or, you can right-click the link and open the page in Incognito/InPrivate mode. That should bypass any adblocker woes.

And after all of that reading & signing up & waiting… you might get a dollar or two. Sorry, but the lawyers are going to take a big bite out of that $90M before it trickles down to us. There are 240 million Facebook users in the USA. It all comes down to how many people hear about this and sign up, I suppose.