Judge Approves $9.5 Million Facebook ‘Beacon’ Accord

[The Straight Story]

Judge Approves $9.5 Million Facebook ‘Beacon’ Accord

A federal judge on Wednesday approved a $9.5 million settlement to a class action lawsuit challenging Facebook’s program that monitored and published what users of the social networking site were buying or renting from Blockbuster, Overstock and other locations.

The case concerned allegations Facebook’s now defunct “Beacon” program breached federal wiretap and video-rental privacy laws. Terms of the settlement, in which Facebook denied any wrongdoing, require the site to finance what the deal calls a “Digital Trust Fund” that would issue more than $6 million in grants to organizations to study online privacy.

The social networking site will have a seat on the fund’s three-member board — a fact that was a big bone of contention (.pdf) in the privacy community, but one U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose, California, said Wednesday was immaterial.

“There has been no pervasive showing that the foundation will be a mere publicity tool for Facebook,” (.pdf) Seeborg wrote.

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/facebook-beacon-2/#ixzz0j0cq1qBo