4. The Facebook Beacon Settlement

Designed to display the ecommerce activities of the friends on Facebook, Beacon ad started pulling details of non Facebook users to display postings. PCworld reported that Facebook has been tracking activities from third party partner sites of users who never signed up for Facebook or those who have already deactivated their account. “The California agreement, entered into last month, calls for Facebook to shutter Beacon permanently and to pay $9.5 million, approximately two-thirds of which will fund a new privacy foundation. The individual consumers named in the complaint would receive damages ranging from $1,000 to $15,000, and their lawyers would be eligible to receive up to one-third of the settlement fund,” says Media Post.