How to claim money from Facebook

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) -Have you filled out your form yet? Turns out you can apply for your share of a $725 million privacy settlement.

Meta is paying to settle a lawsuit alleging the world’s largest social media platform allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

It’s not clear how much money individual users will receive. The larger the number of people submitting valid claims, the smaller each payment will be since the money has to be divided among them.

To apply for the settlement, users can fill out a form and submit it online, or print it out and mail it. It requires some personal information but shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete.

The breach forced Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress and to take out full-page ads where he apologized for the missteps. “I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time. We’re now taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta did not admit wrongdoing. “We pursued a settlement as it’s in the best interest of our community and shareholders,” a company spokesperson said at the time.

In the years since, Facebook has made changes. the company has restricted third-party access to user data and improving communications to users about how their data is collected and shared. In 2021, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta.

Facebook users can make a claim by visiting Facebookuserprivacysettlement.com and entering their name, address, email address, and confirming they lived in the U.S. and were active on Facebook between the aforementioned date