Facebook Settlement: To File a Claim or Not

If you have been keeping up with the news, there's all this hype over the massive settlement in a case against Facebook over privacy matters that's making its rounds. If the settlement is approved, there's apparently $725 million that's up for grabs.

Is it worth applying? I guess that's a yes and no answer. I mean, the math makes it look like mostly just a big waste of time, and frankly the only ones who will get rich from this whole thing will be the lawyers. You have to keep in mind a few things about the totality of what's actually up for grabs.

For one thing, we can assume that the lawyers are going to keep about 33% of the loot, unless they have negotiated a different amount. Assuming it is 33%, that removes $239.25 million from the money for the claimants.

Ah, but there will also be other fees the lawyers will likely want to recoup. How much would that be? I have no idea. But let's assume it's $50 million just for good measure. We now have a balance of $435.75 million. 

Still a staggering amount of money. Even though Facebook has billions of users, claims are only open to people living in the United States, and that's currently about 239 million users. So, let's say all 239 million religiously submitted their claims and everyone gets their cut.

Everyone gets $1.82 respectively.

Of course, not everyone is going to submit a claim. In fact, the actual number of claimants may be only around 10%. That's 23.9 million users staking a claim on this settlement. So, if that were to be true, claimants might now receive $18.23 each.

I have estimated that somewhere around 50 million people might actually go through the process and fill out the form when all is said and done. That would mean $8.72.

Regardless of how many people fill out the claim form, the bottom line is that none of the money will be felt by anyone at all except the lawyers who collect the lion's share and Facebook who has to pay the settlement.

I suppose if there is any rationale whatsoever to actually staking your own claim it's that if you leave your money on the table, someone else will simply get a bit more for their troubles.

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