The Recorder looks at privacy class-actions through the lens of recent suits against Google over its Street View and Gmail services, questioning whether it’s possible that plaintiffs now have too much leverage. Classes comprising millions of people and statutory damages could mean cases, such as the Street View case, become too expensive to strike a deal, the report states. As U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg said in a recent class-action over Facebook’s sponsored stories, because of the class size, “even a modest per-class member payment could easily require a total settlement fund in the billions of dollars.” The “too-big-to-settle” phenomenon is likely to grow as Internet companies add to their user bases, the report states. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
Full Story