LinkedIn premium users to get $1 each in password-leak settlement

To settle a class-action lawsuit, LinkedIn has agreed to pay about $1 each to the roughly 800,000 people who were premium users between March 2006 and June 2012.

A LinkedIn premium user, Katie Szpyrka, sued the social network shortly after roughly 6.5 million hashed user passwords (and 1.5 million from a dating website) were published in June 2012. She alleged that the company was in violation of a number of California state laws, in breach of implied contracts, and was negligent, among other things.

A federal court in San Jose, California approved (PDF) the preliminary settlement which among other things, sets up a fund worth $1.25 million. Lawyers will take up to one-third of that amount, and after some administrative fees, the rest will be distributed to the individual plaintiffs. In the class-action settlement agreement, which was published (PDF) in August 2014, LinkedIn "continues to deny that it committed, or threatened, or attempted to commit any wrongful act or violation of law or duty alleged in the Action."

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