Facebook Class Action email - it looks like a phish but it's the real deal
This, in turn, has led a number of you to ask about a Facebook-related email that's doing the rounds lately.
It certainly has some of the hallmarks of a phish:
→ You'll get $10 if there are 1.2 million claimants or fewer. But if there more than 2.4 million claimants, your share would be below $5, and the court might decide that it's too hard and expensive to distribute that many payouts. In that case, a named charitable fund may end up scooping the whole pot. After the lawyers' fees.
Fact is, however, that this isn't a phish.
It's a genuine class action, with a genuine proposed settlement for Facebook's disputed Sponsored Story system.
There isn't a simple opt-in here.
You can opt in, and you might get $10, but you waive the right to sue Facebook independently if you do. You can opt out, get nothing now, but maintain the right to take your own legal action later.
Or you can do nothing. Then you automatically waive your right to sue Facebook later, as well as any claim on that $20 million mountain of moolah.
Since this is the default, "neither in nor out", you can see the legalistic purpose of the initial email.
And, to be fair to the lawyers, there probably isn't any other reasonable way they could contact you, since most Facebook users are little more than an email address, at least as far as Facebook can reliably tell.