The payments from the class action lawsuit Opperman v. Kong Technologies are being sent out. If you were a member of the class, and you opted to receive your payment in the form of an Amazon gift card, then you may have received or will receive the Amazon gift card today. I personally received mine–in the amount of $59.31. I believe I was one of the first ones to fill out the proper paperwork, as I was a member of the class identified in the lawsuit.
What is iOSAppSettlement.com and Opperman vs. Kong Technologies?
As you might recall, I originally wrote about Opperman vs. Kong Technologies and the iosappsettlement.com website just about a year ago. It was August 2017 when I posted about the Opperman vs. Kong Technologies class action lawsuit and settlement. I’m still surprised that until this day none of the major tech news sites have mentioned or written about this lawsuit and subsequent class action settlement.
What is it all about?
Kong Technologies created apps for Foodspotting, Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram, KIK, Twitter, and Yelp. Kong Technologies was formerly known as Path, Inc.. Essentially, certain apps obtained contact data from users’ devices (their iPhones), in violation of their privacy rights. If you used one of these apps in your iPhone between 2009 and 2012 and allowed those apps to access your contacts, you were entitled to money. You could apply as a member of the class (I used Foursquare, Instagram, Twitter, and Yelp during all those years), and receive payment in the form of an Amazon gift card or a check. There was a $.35 cent fee for a printed check, so I opted for an Amazon gift card.
The litigation alleges that certain versions of the Foodspotting, Foursquare, Gowalla, Instagram, Kik, Path, Twitter, and Yelp apps obtained contact data from users’ iDevices in violation of user’s privacy rights, and that Apple aided and abetted that conduct.
If you were a member of the class, then you had to fill out the form on iosappsettlement.com by November 10, 2017. If you’re reading this now and you didn’t fill out the form on that site by November 10, 2017, then you’re out of luck.
If you did manage to be reading this blog and you did fill out the form (as I recommended), then you may have received or will be receiving an Amazon Gift Card. Mine was $59.31, which almost pays for just over half of my Amazon Prime membership.
Well, it actually DOES pay to read my blog!