> <i>The settlement would collectively give the members a 23 percent stake in Clearview AI, [...]</i><p>That's not fixing the problem. That's embracing it, and also giving a greenlight to all the other prospective AI data abusers watching the case.<p>If you want to fix it, rip this company apart. Investors (who should've known what was happening) get zero. Data gets clawed back. Etc.<p>Why would plaintiffs settle with an attaboy for the abusers like this?<p>> <i>The plaintiffs’ lawyers would also be paid from the eventual sale or cash-out; they said they would ask for no more than 39 percent of the amount received by the class. (Thirty-nine percent of $52 million would be about $20 million.)</i><p>Are big class action suits like this ever done in the public interest?<p>Like, as pro bono work by lawyers who are already wealthy, and their only goal is to do what's good for society?
Put in a different context, this is like lifting your fingerprints off your car door, then paying you a tiny bit of company stock after selling those prints to your police department. It makes so little sense that it's hard to argue against.
I'll take an NFT: No Fucking Thanks. Anything less than algorithmic disgorgement will reward the rapist mentality that basically every tech company has pushed over the past two decades.
Reminds me of the scene in The Godfather when Sonny smashes the photographer's camera then insultingly throws a couple of bills his way to cover the damages.
>If the company goes public or is acquired, those who had submitted a claim form would get a cut of the proceeds. Alternatively, the class could sell its stake. Or the class could opt, after two years, to collect 17 percent of Clearview’s revenue, which it would be required to set aside.<p>"If" and "could" are doing some heavy lifting there.<p>This is all dependent upon the value of Clearview, a company who fucked up <i>so hard</i> that they got themselves into this legal mess almost immediately after they started business, and whose leaders have creepily tracked and harassed users of their own product[1]. The decision makers are still allowed to have their majority say, and now you're incentivizing the victims to <i>support</i> Clearview pushing the boundaries of privacy <i>because it's now in their best financial interest to do so</i>.<p>This is absolute garbage.<p>[1]<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI#Usage" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearview_AI#Usage</a>
> Clearview opted to offer a stake instead of cash payments since the company could "go bankrupt before the case made it to trial," according to the NYT.<p>Yes, that’s the intended effect. I would like this company’s head metaphorically on a pike next to the road into town as a warning to others.
Yet another US company invading privacy and trying to get away with it. If this settlement goes through, it will just open the door for more psychopathic SV founders. Let's hope that's not what will happen here.