Class-action lawsuit or consumer scam? $62M Google payout the latest outrage

Have you gotten a letter that says, “You may be entitled to compensation“?I get a bunch.One claimed my union (New York state forced me to join) probably cheated me on medical insurance.

I didn’t think they did, but I filled out the forms.I got a check for $557.Great!Except .

..

my lawyers pocketed $7 million.How is that fair?Likewise, lawyers accused The Boston Globe of illegally sharing my clicking habits with Facebook.I don’t really care.Facebook already knows my clicking habits.

Anyway, I’d only briefly subscribed.I canceled as soon as I realized that much of the Globe is insipid leftist drivel rerun from The New York Times.Still, I got a check for $158.In theory, class-action lawsuits like these protect consumers, but many resemble anti-consumer scams.First, lawsuits make most everything cost a little more.Second, they deprive us of good products.

Bendectin, a morning-sickness pill, was pulled from the market after hundreds of lawsuits claimed side effects.But the FDA says the drug was safe.Lawsuits helped kill three-wheeled ATVs, too.Lawyers I confronted say losing risky products is a good thing: “If they’re scared of someone like me,” one told me, “I’m happy about that.”We pay for his happiness.Of course, if companies do wrong, they should be punished.When Google was caught sleazily collecting location data from users who turned off location history, it wouldn’t have been worth any single user’s time, or money, to sue.A lawsuit would cost more than anyone might win.

Hence class actions.But the lawyers created their own scam: When Google paid $62 million to settle that lawsuit, the class action lawyers gave themselves $18 million — and then gave $43 million to their favorite nonprofits.That included left-wing advocacy groups like the ACLU (after it promised to use the money to help “people of color,” “activists” and “people seeking ..

.transgender healthcare”).

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