Its looking like Facebook will be a few million lighter after a California judge gave a preliminary approval of a 20 million dollar settlement stemming from Sponsored Story ads. When launched, the Sponsored Story ads didn’t protect user privacy adequately, which outraged a handful of users as they were unable to opt-out of the program.

The Mercury News is reporting that the $20 million is to be set away, in cash, to pay out those users who objected to their names being used in advertisements. Facebook has allegedly also agreed to create new controls that allow users to opt-out of the program.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg made the ruling yesterday that the settlement has been preliminarily approved. Judge Seeborg stated that the settlement  ”has no obvious deficiencies” and that “appears to be the product of serious [negotiations].”

For more information see the Mercury News.

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Legal

About The Author: Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that specializes in social media and search marketing services and web-based application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 6+ years and specializes in Social Media Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn. See more articles by Greg Finn

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