Two years ago, Facebook began deploying a behavioral tracking service it called “Beacon,” which automatically enabled the tracking of Facebook users’ behavior, and shared the data with its advertising partners. It wasn’t an “opt-in” service by anyone stretch of the imagination, and after Facebook took down the majority of the service, customers filed a class-action law suit against the social network.

In a proposed settlement last September, Facebook is opting to use its own money, some US $9.5 million, to establish a fund for the creation of a foundation to help make Web users more aware of their privacy rights and how they can improve their online safety.

Thanks Facebook!

It is what the law calls a “cy pres” settlement, named after an old French phrase which means, “the next best thing.”
“Next best” is not quite a settlement, argues the advocacy group Public Knowledge. Why should Facebook use its own money to pay its own people to do what it should have been paying its own people to do at the get go?

The Public Citizen‘s official objection to the proposed settlement is as follows:

“Creating the Facebook foundation is an inappropriate cy pres-like remedy that provides no value to the class because (1) the foundation is unneeded — numerous established organizations already advocate for improved online privacy, safety and security by educating users, regulators and businesses; and (2) Facebook, whose founder and CEO questions whether privacy rights should be safeguarded, retains unwarranted influence over the proposed foundation…In essence, Facebook is paying itself money to gain a broad release of its users’ legal claims and to create an unneeded foundation over which it will have significant control. It is difficult to imagine a greater abuse of the cy pres remedy.”

Public Citizen is now seeking a legal award of at least US $2,500 per member of the class action, the precedent for which it claims has already been established by the Video Privacy Protection Act.

“Numerous independent, non-profit groups already exist to do precisely that,”

says Public Citizen.

“A list of such organizations, although not comprehensive, includes the Electronic Privacy Information Center (“established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values”), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“educates the press and public” by “defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights today”), Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (“two-part mission — consumer information and consumer advocacy” with goals to “[r]aise consumers’ awareness of how technology affects personal privacy, and to empower consumers to take action to control their own personal information”), the Center for Digital Democracy (addressing privacy issues while promoting “an electronic media system that fosters democratic expression and human rights”), and the World Privacy Forum (“focused on conducting in-depth research, analysis, and consumer education in the area of privacy”). In addition, the Rose Foundation’s Consumer Privacy Rights Fund, created from a series of settlements in cases involving consumer privacy issues, awards grants to back privacy-related research, education, advocacy, and policy development … In addition to being well-established, these organizations have the advantage of not being controlled by Facebook.”