anxious-ace-05

[anxious-ace-05]

“Great! Google settled in a class action lawsuit!”

You might be thinking, after seeing the handful of articles passed around the other morning. But, uh... what does that mean, exactly?

I mean, they got sued. That's awesome, perfect timing, really. So... there isn't really anything left to say about it, right?

WRONG!

In all likelihood, they now owe you money!

Okay, okay, WOAH. Me?! I had nothing to do with this thing! It just... happened! Out of the blue! Why would THEY owe ME money? I mean, I'm not complaining, but...

Why?

...What IS a class action lawsuit, anyways?

Initially, for this will-probably-end-up-being-lengthy-but-I'll-spice-it-up-a-bit-with-some-tumblr-lexicon-I-prommy I was simply going to link a particular episode of NPR's podcast Planet Money (through NPR's very own website, of course) so that people could learn what a class action lawsuit is, how it might effect them, and then we could all move on with our lives.

However, Autism had other plans, and I ended up spending nearly every free minute of my day doing hyperfocused research into the origins of the lawsuit, trying to dig up first-degree sources to share with the fine denizens of tumblrville!

And for my first act: the Planet Money episode I mentioned. It's roughly 25 minutes long, but the version I linked also has the transcript, if you'd rather read.

If you do not have the time or for any reason would rather not give it a read/listen now, I'll sum up the important bits for you below.

Key Takeaways:

Class action lawsuits are lawsuits filed by a limited number of individuals on behalf of a much larger group of individuals that might have been impacted by some form of wrongdoing.

When such lawsuit is filed against a company, they will more often settle - agree to pay a specified amount to the people wronged - than bring the case to court, because settling is cheaper and less of a hassle than a trial, where they could potentially be found guilty and have to pay much, much more.

If you are part of a class action group and the company from the class action settles, you will be notified that you are owed money in some manner, such as through your email.

Oftentimes these emails look... less-than-official. They tend to look like some sorta scam.

The reason for this is, companies do not want people to claim that money, right? So, the lawyers defending the companies push for making it seem more suspicious, lawyers defending the plaintiffs push back and try to make it seem more clear for the class, some middle party keeps things from getting out of hand, and more often than not, notices end up deleted or in spam folders.

Why would the companies not want people to claim that money? Well, (sometimes, not always) the money that does not get claimed will be returned to the company.

According to an expert they brought in, an average of 5-15% of notifications for class actions get a response.

By taking the settlement money, you are agreeing to not pursue any further action regarding the contents of the case. You must fill out a form to do so.

You can also choose to opt out of the settlement for any variety of reasons, but still have to send in a form stating your intent to do so.

If you do not respond to the settlement, you are also agreeing not to pursue any further action, but do not receive any money. This, this is what companies want to happen.

Gravy, right?

After rereading the transcript, I had felt quite refreshed and ready to share it to inform my internet neighbors of the impact of this lawsuit, as well as how it will impact them and what they can do about it.

Then, I decided to look more into the lawsuit itself. And, uh... this is when things started spiraling wildly!

First, of course, I did a quick search for a "google class action lawsuit". Found barely any articles for it, most linking back to an article on a website called "Reuters". Haven't heard of it before, and the article didn't really cite any sources, either.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-settles-youtube-childrens-privacy-lawsuit-2025-08-19/

(it won't link properly >:T)

Frankly, it looked pretty grim. I was worried at this point that the lawsuit was some sort of misunderstanding that got hyped out of proportion. But, at the bottom of that article, was hope...

"The case is C.H. et al v Google LLC et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 19-07016."

Oh! A LEAD!!!

Pasting this into search reveals a few more sources regarding the lawsuit, as well as... wait for it... SOME PDFS! Yes, that's right - pdf files documenting the actual CASE!

...However, many of them were dated months, or even years back. Not anything related to the settlement. Additionally, the initials stated on the case info Reuters provided were C.H. - and the plaintiff for this case was one Nichole Hubbard.

This threw me off for a while, but I'll spare you from my dumbassery. This was, indeed, the case mentioned in the articles. The case number - "19-07016" - matched. It did, indeed, take place in California courts, and was, indeed, focused on Google and YouTube's collection of kid's data for targeted ads. The thing that was really catching me though, was the lack of a more recent date and the different name of the plaintiff.

At the time, I had completely forgotten this one particular fact about the U.S. justice system - the names of minors are not present in court documents, instead initialized. Thus, C.H. is very likely the child of Nichole Hubbard, who led this case on behalf of her child (and tons of other kids whose families were involved in this case).

Now, moving on from that little aside, I had decided to continue my search. I wanted to know more about the settlement, because quite frankly, I am most definitely lumped into the group of 35-45 million people who were younger than 13 and watching YouTube sometime between July 2013 and April 2020, and as such, this is something that would potentially be coming across my spam folder sometime soon (and yours, too, if you happen to match that description as well).

It was around here that I decided to see what class action lawsuit databases were available to me.

And, as it turns out - there are, indeed, a few!

My main preference, of course, would have been any website ending in .gov - these are sites run by the government, so they seemed a pretty likely (and secure!!) place to find a filed lawsuit.

But, uh, unfortunately! PACER, the case search function provided through the United States Courts website, not only requires you to register an account in order to access files, but charges 10 cents a page for any file you wish to access. And while I was interested... I like to do things free and account-less, if possible!

So, I set my sights on ClassAction.org. Although not as official as a .gov site, .org still denotes some level of professionalism and authority above a .com. At least in my opinion. spidersge.org would probably say otherwise.

Search through its settlement database and articles I may, but unfortunately there is naught a recent kid-data-collection Google settlement to be seen.

However, I did find a much more comprehensive guide to class action lawsuits!

Feel free to read it, if you still aren't quite sure what the hell I'm talking about, but there is one point I DO want to highlight from this overview.

Remember how I said that (sometimes, but not always) unclaimed settlement money gets returned to the company? Well, here it mentions that "If there is any unclaimed settlement money, it will either be distributed to remaining class members, returned to the defendant or donated to a charity or non-profit organization as a 'cy pres' award."

This is, as you can imagine, a pretty important point to mention. As you can see, it not guaranteed that unclaimed money will return to the company (though, settlements that do not get responded to will still count as waiving your right to bring the same grievance to the company in the future). Additionally, you will notice the mention of distributing money to remaining class members - this is because the portion of settlement money given to people fluctuates based on the amount of people who respond to the settlement notice.

The $30 million Google has to dish out doesn't go just to the class - the majority of it will go to lawyers, legal fees, or of course to the people who filed the lawsuit and fought for this case. Whatever remains is what will be distributed among the class, and the fewer people who claim it, the more money that can be given to the people who do.

After all, 35-45 million people is, like, a SHIT TON of people. That is more people than single dollars they could hand out, IF the $30 MIL was all being given to the class in the first place. The Reuters article from earlier mentions that if 1-2% of people respond, they might each get $30-60, "before deducting legal fees and costs". And I haven't even gone to check these numbers because I had Physics earlier (the day I wrote this) and am feeling rather mathed out right about now because I'm still summer-brained.

And... looking at the mess of text above me, I'd say you are probably feeling pretty worded out! My sincerest apologies. Let's crank up the heat a bit.

After not finding what I'm looking for - whatever that is - on ClassAction.org (although I will be keeping it in mind, it's a very helpful site for this thing after all, seeing as they list out all currently available settlements as well as when they are due, how much money claimants can expect, and the website that you can access information on) I continue my search, stumbling upon a neat site called Claim Depot.

Oh... wait, holy shit, it's actually here!

Ignoring what appears to be a VERY AI-generated mock up of a YouTube page featuring all the kid's top hits such as "Elines Song", "Eatrety Candies", "Cansix & WMs", and of course "Baby Shark", this page appears to have just about ALL the information for Hubbard v. Google!

Here, it mentions that the preliminary approval hearing date is set for September 23rd, and that the claim form and website for the settlement will become available 30 days after approval is granted. The website for the settlement is already listed on the page as well, however it is still inaccessible for the time being. The side bar also states some other key info, including...

An actual FUCKING case number!

Now, before I had tried throwing out all the gargle before "19-07016" in hopes of finding actual documents for the court proceedings, as well as using it to search databases, but mostly just found unrelated cases instead. But here, it states the full court number:

"5:19-cv-07016"!

Pasting this into search...

It's the motherFUCKING. MOTHERLODE.

Several documents are revealed, whether through pdfs made publicly available via internet file sharers or through an esoteric collection of websites with no seeming rhyme or reason as to how or why a specific file got released in a specific place at a specific time, but hey! A heck ton is here!

And I won't bore you with the proceedings. I didn't even bother boring myself with the proceedings, but! If you're curious, there is a collection of documents for the case dated across several years. I'm not sure if it's all there - there should really be one cohesive place to find this shit, preferably one that does not require you to PAY 10 CENTS A PAGE (they do cap the charge at $3 tho, I feel I should give them that at least) - but, a crap ton of it sure is!

A little bit more digging reveals another article regarding the lawsuit, with a little bit more information:

Now, this one gets its information from an article that did in fact show up earlier. But I IGNORED IT because it was freaking SUBSCRIPTION BASED. Sighhhh

This one DOES however bring in a direct quote FROM that article by Law360: "'This is an excellent result for a case based on privacy invasion claims arising from the alleged (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) violations, and a significant result more generally in relation to other cases alleging data privacy violations,' Law360 quoted the parents as saying, which they noted follows 'almost six years of litigation that included five different judges, multiple challenges to the pleadings, a successful, precedent-setting appeal by plaintiffs to the Ninth Circuit, and discovery.'"

See that? A quote of a quote of a quote. I'm more meta than that zuckerberg shit

I'll be honest, I'm not very familiar with COPPA (although, here it is if you wanna read it, found it through a page on the Federal Trade Commission's website), but I do know that it is Not In Fact KOSA, but some other already-in-place child internet safety act. Why we need another i know the fuck not. But the fact that a lawsuit that was raised to combat Google's child privacy violations, regulations set in place with COPPA, is settling right as they begin to inflict privacy violations in the name of the yet-to-exist KOSA certainly does make me feel Some Way™️.

Going back to the 5:19-cv-07016 search tab... rifling through the documents a little bit I find what is probably my crowning achievement of this entire search.

IT IS! THE MOTHER! FUCKING!! SETTLEMENT INFORMATION, BABY!!!

It has ALL the information on the settlement. Some stuff we went over before, yes, but also everything we could not have possibly known without it.

I haven't gone over every little detail of it yet, though I probably will at some point, and would recommend that you do too especially if you are a member of the class in this lawsuit.

And, of course, a very key thing to mention here - any remaining money from the settlement will NOT be returned to Google. It will instead be distributed to "an organization approved by the Court", as the document states. What that will be I have no clue.

But, of course, like every other class action lawsuit, if you take the money or ignore it, you waive your right to sue for similar claims later. I don’t know the reach of this - it appears that those details will be on the settlement website, buuuut that's not up yet, so.

"Well why the fuck didn't you just share this with us from the beginning?!?!" you most definitely are asking me right now.

My first answer is simple: to teach you something! Something that you very likely were unaware of, that so, SO many people are unaware of, because so often this country has a tendency to hide important shit from people LIKE THIS!!!

My second answer is also simple: to teach you something! Something that you very likely did not know, that so, SO many people do not know, because finding these first-degree sources isn't something that people really bother doing, if they even KNOW HOW!!!

Even me just doing THIS, finding ONE key first-degree source regarding the settlement itself took me an entire damn day! An amount of time that no doubt would have been significantly shorter if I was aware of these resources and tactics much, much sooner!

But now, I do. I have the resources and the tactics - I know where to go and what to do and HOW to hunt down class action settlement information because I decided to go down that road. And I decided to share it with YOU so that now YOU can access these materials and resources and utilize the same tactics yourself, if the need ever arises!

Because we're people! Human! Or you are whatever you identify as actually! We're fuckin' sophonts!! We pass information down through languages we invented! Or we SHOULD, and so I'm GONNA, because like moral obligation to my fellow sapient beings or whatever.

So TAKE my resources and TAKE my experiences and TAKE my love and go!! Do something awesome with it!! Tear it up all 'round town!! Spontaneously infodump to a friend or maybe even a stranger!! That's what I did here y'know!!

What should you do about this, about the money you got from the settlement (if that applies to you)??

Oh, hell if I know. I'm not a lawyer I can't provide legal advice and quite frankly I'm not quite sure what to do in this situation or what *I* should even do in this situation. All I can say is, ignoring it doesn't seem optimal, but ultimately doesn't hurt anyone in the grand scheme of things. Overall the best thing to do will be whatever suits you best given your current situation.

The lawsuit’s already settled, Google ain't getting that $30 MIL back, take a look at your options and then figure out what'll be best for you.

Now go forth into the world with more knowleg in your brain okay get outta here bye 🫸🚶‍➡️

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I have received word that YouTube is desperately trying to advertise YouTube Premium, and that they have even started advertising on other platforms. The boycott is working. Keep it up, don’t stop until victory is secured.

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I’m curious, so please reblog for reach! Also be honest, there is complete anonymity in polls so, there really is no shame. I just want to know where we stand just about a week into the boycott

Again, please reblog for larger sample size! And remember, any contribution is contribution! It all adds up to a bigger picture

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possession horror where the thing possessing the autistic character causes them to behave in a more neurotypical way. autistic possession horror where the thing inside you is easier to communicate with than you are, the thing inside you doesn’t have a flat affect, the thing inside you doesn’t let your body stim, the thing inside you is how you were told to behave and you can only do it when you are no longer you. autistic possession horror where you will never forget that everyone liked it better than you before they found out something was controlling you. autistic possession horror where they know what’s inside you isn’t you and debate whether it would be easier for everyone to leave you like this anyway. you agree. reblog.

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Unlearning How White People Ask Personal Questions

http://www.samefacts.com/2014/05/culture-and-civil-society/unlearning-how-white-people-ask-personal-questions/

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Like to charge reblog to cast

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The YouTube boycott, addiction, sprints and marathons

In this essay I will...

No I won't. Instead I'm going to start off with what I ended up reading on reddit a few days before the boycott started, when a doing a blackout was suggested. "What use does it have to participate? We won't make a big enough impact to change youtube and google's mind." (I'm paraphrasing here)

My first thought to this was of course "this is a really shitty mentality to have. Giving up before even attempting to start."

Then, on the day the boycott started, I've deactivated my youtube related apps and closed my open youtube tabs. Like most probably already have, I noticed that I ended up clicking out of habit and muscle memory on the place where the youtube app icon used to be.

So often in fact that it annoyed me and made me also at the same time aware of how often I've been using youtube previously.

How addicted I had actually become to that corporate video service that kept on showing me stuff I really didn't want to see or interact with, just because it was outrageous enough for people to click and engage with that.

Then it hit me: that reddit comment from before wasn't a Contrarian doomer might as well just give up mentality thing. It was an excuse an addict would make for not quitting their addiction. To keep on justifying the addiction.

This was followed by another thought: just quitting youtube until they change their policy and stance on their age detection AI and id verification won't be enough. Most people won't even join because a full quit without an established reliable replacement is already a tall order to ask. Keeping on doing it indefinitely an even higher one.

So, my next thought was "What if instead of an outright full quit, we start off by finding ways to help people lessen and minimising their use first? And help them build up habits and strategies to keep on going indefinitely in the long run, so they don't fall back on old habits again?"

Hence why I'm currently doing my best to try and map out a masterpost on basically a no youtube (or maybe just a "Nopetube") challenge that could go on for a long time. One that helps more people ease in, build up the mental stamina to go over to a full quit later on should they choose to, etc. And then there is also that thing about wanting to support one's favourite creator's still, so they won't suffer as much as a result of the boycott and so on, but that's something I'm still working on.

This boycott here, if we want it to truly be successful, it has to become a marathon with millions of people and not just a intense sprint for a few hundred to pat yourself on the back at the end of it. Not that sprints aren't important as well and can't do anything, but most people just aren't built or trained to be sprinters. And we need everyone we can get for this.

Cause personally I think it's the best if we help everyone who wants to, do as much as they can and getting as independent and as away from youtube as possible. Be it indefinitely, until youtube changes for the better or until an actual better alternative emerges and stays around.

Now that I have my improvised mini essay finished here, I would like to get off my soap box, thank you very much..

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For those who don't know, YouTube will be adding AI age verification for US-based users starting August 13th. This will attempt to use "the types of videos a user is searching for, the categories of videos they have watched, or the longevity of the account," to determine their age, regardless of what birthdate they have entered. If an adult is incorrectly determined to be a child, they will need to give YouTube a government-issued ID or a credit card to verify their age. As with many such things, YouTube claims it is for the children's safety. Obviously, I am all for protecting children, and I don't want them to be exposed to things they shouldn't see, but this is most likely more about data collection. Even if it was about children's safety, this was the logic used for creating YouTube Kids, and we can all see how "safe" that is.

If you don't want to directly send your driver's license to Google, you'll need to deal with "age appropriate product experiences and protections," such as "digital wellbeing tools" and disabling personalized ads. The second part is because in the US, it is illegal to collect certain information about people under the age of 13. Now, the people at Google (which owns YouTube) love collecting information about their users, but they don't want to get in trouble, and they believe AI moderation is the answer. Not only can the AI work around the clock, but if anything goes wrong, they can say it was the machine that made the mistake, not them. And, as with any moderation, there will be mistakes (again, look at YouTube Kids).

Because of this, creators and viewers alike are planning to stop using the site starting on August 13th. I personally doubt YouTube will care much, at least at first, but if they lose enough ad revenue, they might reconsider their decision. YouTube says they'll be rolling this out to a small test group first, so it might not affect you right away, but if nothing is done, it will soon. If you're an American who uses YouTube regularly, I encourage you to join, whether just for a day, or as long as it takes. And if you have kids, please teach them internet safety and monitor their internet access so that companies can't make this garbage excuse anymore.

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I wanna write so badly but my brain fog is making that impossible

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white ppl will steal every aesthetic from black culture and then call it something so stupid like bo derek braids instead of box braids or hasbin hotel core instead of black southern dandism. yall will bend over backwards to call my culture barbaric/scary just to drool over the aesthetic the moment no actual black people are involved (21 pilots vs actual reggae). And if ur white/nonblack reading this just reblog. I dont need any comments talking about how not racist you are + speaking up over actual black people.

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I would be kicking my feet and twirling my hair but unfortunately my legs hurt like a bitch

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IMPORTANT NEWS FOR ALL THE MONKIE KID FANS

We got information from a reliable source about the show.

Apparently, while we all thought that s6 was taking their time to give us a better quality, Lego hasn't worked at all on it.

We've been quiet about it for far to long. If we want this show to survive we need to make our voices heard! Let them know that the fans WANT for this show to keep going. And we have ways to do it!

1) Start using #RenewMonkieKid

Let them know that we want a new season!!

2) Contact LEGO.

Go to Lego customer service > send a message > I need help with something else > My topic isn't listed And let them know how much you love the show, your concerns, and maybe about the struggles we have with acessibility! But remember, no spamming and no harassing. Being mean about it will get us nowhere.

3) Start creating!

Fanart, fanfics, animatics, and whatever you like!! Show them how much Monkie Kid has inspired us all!! And don't forget to use the #

4) Get the show known!

There are tons of content creators out there! We can get their attention (I repeat without harassing or spamming them) to the show, show them what they're missing out!!

if we want our favourite monkeys to succeed, we need to start being loud!!

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Would disabling destructive mob actions fix this? Or something to that effect?

So my very old minecraft worls is one i play on survival or creative given my mood, and the big goal of the world is to build an entire kingdom by myself. This has and will take many years.

So far there is quite a large area of town houses, shops, corn mazes, farms, flea markets, ect. That is manicured down to the last details including where grass flowers and dirt blocks are.

There have been lots of instances of terraforming, like covering caves, holes, making hills perfect, ect.

The only problem is FUCKING ENDERMEN keep picking up random grass blocks and ruining the whole landscape!! One removed a grass block in a village, which exposed a cave, which 5 VILLAGERS FELL DOWN IN AMD TURNED TO ZOMBIES.

They ruin my meticulous creations, and the only way to stop it is to turn off mod griefing. But i feel like that takes away the fun in the game! I wish i could just disable endermen picking up grass and dirt blocks

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i feel like a lot of discourse around identities could just be boiled down to “you could not pay me to care about this”

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Just walked up and down the sidewalk with my new rollator!!!

Didn't realize how much pain I was in when I walked until I walked without pain

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MY ROLLATOR CAME TODAY!!!!!

[idk what I needed to black out]