There is another form of charitable giving, which happens without much fanfare, each year. It is called cy pres, and it often results in money diverted away from people to whom it is owed and toward causes they may or may not support.
The decision is a victory for Ted Frank, the litigation director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and prominent critic of many class-action settlements. Frank said the money awarded to the privacy groups, under a legal doctrine known as “cy pres,” should have gone to class members like himself. He drew support from a bipartisan group of 13 state attorneys general led by Arizona’s Mark Brnovich.
Because “[o]bjectors do not contest the value of the settlement” or plead that they suffered any out-of-pocket injury from Google’s conduct, the only question was whether it was “feasible” to distribute $8.5 million to a class with 129 million estimated members who performed searches through Google.
The Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) today filed a reply brief in In re Google Inc. Cookie Placement Consumer Privacy Litigation arguing that the cy pres distribution in the proposed settlement is unfair to the class when direct compensation through a claims process is feasible.
Theodore Frank, an activist who founded the Class Action Fairness Center, objected to the deal on several grounds, including that some of them had prior relationships with Google as well as the lawyers representing the consumers.
This week, 13 state attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) and its objection to a consumer privacy class action settlement involving Google because it provides millions of dollars to attorneys and zero dollars to the class.
Not only did class counsel make no effort to distribute any money to the class here, but there are obvious conflicts of interest associated with the cy pres recipients, Frank asserted, noting that Google is a regular donor to four of the entities and co-lead class counsel Brian Strange is board chairman of another, Public Counsel.
The Center for Class Action Fairness filed its opening brief challenging a class action settlement in a consumer privacy case against Google because it provides millions of dollars to attorneys and zero dollars to the class.
This blog post was published when the Center for Class Action Fairness was a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) has long opposed abusive “cy pres” settlements that benefit third-party beneficiaries instead of compensating class members; Ted Frank wrote about the issue in 2008 before founding CCAF, and Ted Frank has testified to Congress concerning cy pres settlements. As Reuters reporter Alison Frankel wrote after CCAF’s win in the Eighth…
The National Law Review reports on the Center for Class Action Fairness's objection to a Google class action settlement. Class members claim Google used computer code to circumvent privacy settings, allowing advertisers and third parties to track their cookies and browsing activities. In settlement, Google offered to pay $5.5 million to a handful of internet technology and privacy rights institutions for internet privacy research. Class counsel agreed. With all advocates on…
