Facebook users in United States who received a slice of a $725 million class-action lawsuit settlement are set to receive a second payout.
In 2023 the lawsuit was finalized after a five-year legal battle stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when the now-defunct marketing firm was accused of improperly scraping user data from Facebook and selling it to unapproved third parties to target voters during the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, which has a $1.5 trillion market cap, agreed to settle the lawsuit to avoid going to the court. As part of the settlement, the company denied any liability or wrongdoing.
The first round of payments happened last year, but around $100 million is yet to be paid and remains in the fund, according to court filings. A California court approved the second round of payments last month.
The remaining money will go to those who filed a claim in the lawsuit by the August 25, 2023, deadline for the first round and cashed the funds.
Those who were eligible included anyone in the United States who used Facebook between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022.
Eligible party that did not file a claim by the August 2023 deadline will not be privy to the second round of payouts, which will begin on Tuesday, June 9, and continue for the following four weeks.
Facebook users who will receive a second payout will be notified by email three to four days before the funds are issued.
The email’s subject line will be: ‘Facebook User Privacy Settlement – Settlement and Second Distribution Status Update.’
Claimants in the first round who are unsure whether they are eligible for the second round of payments can email the settlement administrator at info@facebookuserprivacysettlement.com with their claim ID for more information.
The settlement administrator has estimated that more than 15 million people will receive a slice of the remaining money, which will be around $95 million after $5 million of administrative fees are taken into account, according to court filings.
The settlement website warns that the second-round payouts will be smaller than the first-round median sum of $32.45, ranging instead from $4.67 to $7.32.
Payments will be issued through checks, direct deposit, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle or prepaid debit cards, depending on the method selected by users when they filed the initial claim.
The amount claimants earned in the first round and will earn in the second round is based on ‘allocation points,’ which refers to the number of months a user spent on Facebook within the 15-year eligibility period.
A user who spent three years on the website between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, would have 36 ‘allocation points,’ for example.
The class-action lawsuit that led to the nearly three-quarters of a billion dollar settlement began as separate cases that were consolidated in 2018.
Plaintiffs accused Facebook of sharing user data without consent to third parties such as data brokers, advertisers and app developers.
Meta agreed to settle the lawsuit in December 2022, and it was finalized the next year. The first round of payments was issued yet another two years later in September 2025.
