Settlement Payments Sent for Google Plus Profile Litigation
If you were a member of the settlement class of the Google Plus Profile Litigation, then you may have received a payment from PayPal. Just like others are reporting via social media posts, I received my settlement payment of a whopping $2.15 to my PayPal account today. If you have not received your $2.15 via PayPal, then you may still receive the payment. Based on what I’m seeing, several people previously received their payments a few days ago, and I just received my payment today. I can imagine that sending out millions of PayPal payments takes time, even if it’s an automated process via PayPal. They can’t send them all at once, or all of them in one day, I can imagine.
In order to receive a payment for the Google Plus Profile Litigation, however, you have to have been a member of the settlement class. Which basically means is that you had a Google Plus account and you applied for the settlement payment. As I recall, emails were sent out a while ago (you had to fill out the form by Oct 8, 2020) related to this. I don’t recall exactly when it was sent out to me. However, regarding payments, the official website shows this:
On August 2, 2021, we will begin to electronically transmit settlement payments. We anticipate that all payments will be completed by August 14, 2021. Pursuant to Section 3 of the Settlement Agreement, each Settlement Class Member was entitled to submit no more than one Claim for a Settlement Payment and all payments are to be made electronically through ACH or Paypal. Each of the 1,720,029 Settlement Class Members who submitted valid claims will be entitled to a settlement award payment of $2.15. If you have questions regarding this payment, please contact the Settlement Administrator through email at Info@GooglePlusDataLitigation.com.
Regarding the settlement and what it’s about:
Google operated the Google+ social media platform for consumers from June 2011 to April 2019. In 2018, Google announced that the Google+ platform had experienced software bugs between 2015 and 2018, which allowed app developers to access certain Google+ profile field information in an unintended manner. Plaintiffs Matthew Matic, Zak Harris, Charles Olson, and Eileen M. Pinkowski thereafter filed this lawsuit asserting various legal claims on behalf of a putative class of Google+ users who were allegedly harmed by the software bugs (“Class”). Google denies Plaintiffs’ allegations, denies any wrongdoing and any liability whatsoever, and believes that no Class Members, including the Plaintiffs, have sustained any damages or injuries due to the software bugs.
Google operated the Google Plus social media network. There were software bugs. A lawsuit was filed, it became a class action lawsuit, and $7.5 million was put aside to send to members of the class. Your share is $2.15 of the $7.5 million if you were a member of the class (if you had a Google Plus account).
How you will you spend your $2.15?