An appeals court affirmed approval of a settlement over Facebook’s scanning of private messages while also pushing back against the social media giant’s assertions that the class lacks standing.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that users, who claimed Facebook probed their private messages to catalog URLs shared within the chats, got a fair shake in the 2017 no-cash deal, and rejected the objections of Anna St. John and her colleagues at the Center for Class Action Fairness that users received only “worthless injunctive relief.” With damages claims already booted from the case at the time of the settlement, the panel noted that the class only had injunctive or declaratory avenues for relief.
