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Years After ProPublica Exposed Vizio For Spying On Users, Lawyers Will Make Millions From Lawsuit (hollywoodreporter.com)
After it was revealed that Vizio was tracking customers' viewing habits and sharing that data with advertisers, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company. Now, Ars Technica is reporting that "lawyers representing Vizio TV owners have asked a federal judge in Orange County, California to sign off on [the settlement] with the company for $17 million, for an affected class of 16 million people, who must opt-in to get any money." The company "also agrees to delete all data that it collected." From the report: Notice of the lawsuit will be shown directly on the Vizio Smart TVs, three separate times, as well as through paper mailings. When it's all said and done, new court filings submitted on Thursday say each of those 16 million people will get a payout of somewhere between $13 and $31. By contrast, their lawyers will collectively earn a maximum payout of $5.6 million in fees.
Eventually, the company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission. However, this new settlement is related to an entirely separate lawsuit, one that was consolidated in federal court in southern California. This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Eventually, the company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission. However, this new settlement is related to an entirely separate lawsuit, one that was consolidated in federal court in southern California. This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
That's the important part. For these sorts of things to have any impact on corporations the punishment must be more than the profit from doing it.
No money was created here, money was simply transferred from purchasers of TVs to lawyers.
How do I get my part of the settlement? I've got 2 Vizos. :)
Not out of this air, out of company coffers, which in turn came from sales of TVs. Hence money from purchasers got given to lawyers.
Money does get created out of thin air all the time, but this isn't how it happens.
Class actions are an economical way of vindicating the rights of large classes of people—and that is why big businesses don't like them. They want the latitude of ripping people off just below the pain threshold, whether they are selling goods or buying labor.
Though arbitration is its own issue, the Federal Arbitration Act should be amended to be more consumer and employee friendly, and to prevent companies from creating click-wrap licenses that strip you of your right to a class action.
I was given a Vizio TV. So, yesterday I decided to install the remote control program.
THE PROGRAM WILL NOT FUNCTION UNLESS YOU ENABLE GPS LOCATION.
The excuse was so that it could locate devices and WiFi networks near you. I want it to work on exactly one TV on exactly one network. I did no provide permission, uninstalled the app, gave it a one star on the Play Store and ranted about why. I'm not the first to rant about that after a glance through.
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17 Million dollars, the lawyers get half and some administration costs to send out all the checks. With 16 million people in the class wouldn't it mean it is closer to 13-32 cents.
How did the purchasers manage to retain rights to money that they voluntarily handed over to retailers, and the retailers voluntarily handed over to Vizio (generously assuming that there were no additional middlemen), exactly?
They didn't.
What money, time, or modicum of effort did purchasers invest in pursuing Vizio?
None.
Of course, you're free to opt out of the class action settlement and pursue your own claim(s). You're going to do that, right?
Nope.
For me, personally, I don't see the big deal in what they did. I pretty much assume anything "smart" is tracking me and selling that data to someone. I've found their TVs to be great quality for the price, the software is reliable and consistent (looking squarely at you, Samsung, and your 20,000 different software iterations). They also keep the software up to date.
I have 5 of their smart TVs in my house. When I bought them, they came with an Android tablet, which was pretty much the only way to control the TVs at the time. My kids absolutely love those tablets. My youngest casts from the tablet to the TV, then plays games on the tablet while she watches the TV.
Vizio then released a new update to the TVs. Via a software update. they made it possible to use a standalone remote to watch Netflix, Amazon (which doesn't support ChromeCast so this was actually a net-new feature for these TVs), Hulu, etc. You needed a new remote to access these features though because the original basically had 6 buttons: power, input, channel +/-, volume +/-, and that's it. Obvious way to make a couple of bucks by selling said new remotes, right? Nope. Even though the TVs were each almost 2 years old and clearly out of warranty, Vizio generated a code per-TV that allowed you to request a free remote per-TV. Not "free plus stupid amount for shipping and handling", free as in I got 5 new remotes for the grand total of $0.00. It took about a week from when I requested the remotes to when they arrived.
Long story short, I guess I don't care if they know what I watch. Netflix knows what I watch on Netflix. Amazon knows what I watch on Amazon. Hulu knows what I watch on Hulu. YouTube knows what I watch on YouTube. I basically assume each of them are somehow selling, sharing, or using that data for ads. I just can't seem to work up the anger to be upset that Vizio was doing the same.
Class Action lawsuits are pointless; the lawyers get millions, the "class members" get a couple of bucks - MAYBE. Judges need to require that at least 75% of the money go to the class members, with much less to the lawyers.
but the Court finds them only worth $1.00.
A court, the place one used to go to find justice that no longer exists.
Yeah. I get that people don't like it when lawyers get rich off of other people's misfortune, but headlines like this seem like PR from some organization that wants to get rid of consumer class actions.
Class actions are an economical way of vindicating the rights of large classes of people—and that is why big businesses don't like them. They want the latitude of ripping people off just below the pain threshold, whether they are selling goods or buying labor.
Though arbitration is its own issue, the Federal Arbitration Act should be amended to be more consumer and employee friendly, and to prevent companies from creating click-wrap licenses that strip you of your right to a class action.
The problem is that Vizio should have been beaten to the point where no one would ever even think to do something like this again... corporate bosses and board members jailed, company liquidated, employees fired or laid off, (and then THEY can pursue relief because they were terminated, from the assets in frozen bank accounts belonging to the responsible corporate heads and majority shareholders whose misbehavior and bad decisions caused the company to get liquidated,) with the assets divided evenly between members of he injured class.
This slap on the wrists practically ensures this kind of malfeasance will happen again and again and again... etc.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
There a settlement of a lawsuit, and the lawyers collected routine fees. Since when is the lawyers getting their regular compensation the "story" or even "news"?
The story is that Vizio was spying on users and paid a settlement as a result, but one that was trivial compared to the magnitude of the violation.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The key to being smart is knowing that when something doesn't make sense, it's a mistake that you're making or some information that you're missing.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Generally the courts try to avoid remedies that destroy thousands of jobs.
I get what you're saying, but liquidating companies has a side effect of boosting the unemployment roles.. That, certainly, is not in the government's best interest.
This $17 million amount is more than Vizio made by licensing the data collected
This is what a fine MUST be. Otherwise it is part of the operating cost, not a fine.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Won't the open market simply fill the void left by a mismanaged company?
I'm inclined to agree with the AC here. Yes, it would be painful for those whose jobs would be lost, and the poor, poor government would have to use some of the sky-high pile of cash they're sitting on to help people through, and they should turn around and visit that pain upon the person or persons most responsible for the misbehavior, perhaps putting the corporate execs and those who allowed them to do it in stocks in the public square, and let people hurl rotten fruit at them or something along those lines, again, with the intent that no one EVER will do it again.
A basic tenet of the theory of punishment for crime as a deterrent for others or of fines and corporate sanctions as, again, a deterrent against others behaving similarly, is that justice must be sure and swift. It is precisely because it is not, it is very unsure, and takes forever if it comes at all, that the deterrent effect is lost. Suppose in your town or village where you live, the local authorities make J-walking a capital crime. Cross the street in the middle, or against the light, and we'll hang you. But they never do it. At first after the enactment of the law, people insist when they're caught that it's not fair, no one publicized the fact that the law was enacted, and that the town HAS no traffic control devices, or that the law never properly defined what a road was, etc. Then there are public protests, acts of civil disobedience, and before you know it, everyone's back to J-walking, and when occasionally someone does it and is caught and tried, every public official is assured this is his or her last term in elected office, and they start getting death-threats, or maybe someone tosses a bomb into a meeting of the city council.
They end up failing to enforce the law and everyone pretty much ignores it. I'll offer a real-life corollary. Weed. Still illegal throughout the United States under federal law in virtually 100% of cases, but for a while, before America started this downward spiral into neofascism, it was being enforced less and less, (until the evil little Keebler Elf got his gnarled little hands on the power to prosecute people for non-crimes,) and maybe one day the government will pull its head out of its ass on this issue, but I'm not holding my breath.
Similarly, when a corporation does something that costs them in one way or another, whether its environmental damage for which they must pay x dollars (or the local equivalent,) or cause some people to be injured or die, for which they must pay y dollars, or it's just normal operating costs, for which they must pay z dollars, etc., the corporate, for-profit world only sees these as costs, and as long as, after costs, they remain sufficiently profitable, A, they will go right on doing exactly what they were doing, and simply let the accountants deal with the numbers, and B, every other company who sees that will simply have to adjust their expectations for profit margins accordingly. It won't actually stop them, unless and until behavior of this kind is both unprofitable, and the risk of getting caught and punished is reasonably close to 100%. It's the reason why corporations don't just murder their competition, literally, or hire people to do it, unless they're members of criminal gangs, in which case they sometimes do, since for THEM, their entire operations are often highly illegal, and without the cover of a legitimate business to operate under the color of, they know if they get caught they're screwed, so that frees them to behave in a way corporations are, mostly not free to operate, happily.
But this case has illustrated I think, pretty well, the fact that a company will do whatever it takes to make a bunch of money and please their owners/shareholders, legal consequences, ethics, morals, etc., be damned. It's typical and illustrative. I doubt this will cause any corporation to behave meaningfully differently, even Vizio themse
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Lawyers for Vizio Smart TV owners propose final deal, around $20 per person (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/lawyers-for-vizio-smart-tv-owners-propose-final-deal-around-20-per-person/)
You'll note that's not enough to defray the cost of buying a new TV of the same class or value from a different manufacturer, which is what they should have required. But that would be bad, because we wouldn't want to REALLY penalize malfeasance. Ugh... I own a Vizio TV myself, from before the "Smart" TV era, so hopefully, (as it has no intenet connection,) it's not spying on me, but I can tell you this, it will be my LAST EVER Vizio purchase.
It just occurred to me... doesn't Vizio mean "I... see... you..." in some language? Makes total sense now. #BoycottVizio.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
How does someone report that a $17 million settlement means that "each of those 16 million people get between $13 and $31" and not see the math error? If you follow the links, you eventually find out that they expect only 2-5% of the class to opt-in to get paid. But how does someone summarize it so poorly? In reality, the lawyers get $5.6 million, the expenses for the mailing will probably come to $4 million, and about $7 million is available for the 16 million people. Only because so few people will respond will anyone get more than $1.
And that is why the Board of Directors and C-Suite should all be punished financially in addition to the company. It's the only way this kind of shit is going end. But, that will likely never happen because it would impact lawyers ability to get rich.
Just another day in Paradise
I'd say that's the right track.. Fining a company itself isn't enough.. Yes, you need to make the actual bad actors part of the punishment.
I'd propose firing the CEO and VP... Say.. 20% of upper management.. Not enough to cripple the company (we have jobs to worry about), but enough that there is lots of self-interest in not doing the illegal act and then publicize the crap out of it.. Video the asshole being shown the door by security.. There is a lot of motivation in some public humiliation as a legal punishment... Maybe strip the 20%, CEO, and VP of their stock or stock options...Remove any/all influence they have with the company..