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.

Comments

There only important part:

[green1]

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.

Re:Yes

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

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.