谷歌、Facebook的“赔款算盘”

    那么，为什么这两起诉讼中的原、被告各方在决定向慈善机构支付近似罚金时，都不约而同地忽略了电子隐私信息中心呢？同时，这两起诉讼最后的确选择了不少非营利组织作为受益人，比如位于大长滩的基督教青年会（YCMA）、位于奥克兰的青年电台（Youth Radio）、布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institute，经常获得谷歌的捐赠）和麦克阿瑟基金（MacArthur Foundation，经常获得Facebook的捐赠）等。但为什么大家很难把这些机构当成忠心守护老百姓数码隐私的守夜人呢？

    是不是因为电子隐私信息中心在抗击侵权行为时表现得太激进，导致这两起诉讼的被告反对向它支付罚金呢？Google Buzz一案的原告律师盖里•梅森表示，原、被告之间的调解谈判是保密的，因此拒绝对此发表评论。而Facebook一案中的两位原告律师则没有回电话。

    2011年3月的Google Buzz一案中，电子隐私信息中心和其他7个关注网络隐私问题的非营利机构共同发起抗议，反对原告律师和被告将他们排除在罚金受益人之外。同时声称，原、被告实际上将大部分罚金给了“收了谷歌的钱，帮谷歌搞游说或给谷歌做咨询”的机构。（EFF、CDT和CIS都否认他们与谷歌是这种关系。他们表示自己完全独立自主，并表示他们收到的任何企业捐赠都是“不受限制”的，也就是说没有任何附加条件。）

    2011年5月，圣荷塞联邦地方法院审判长詹姆斯•威尔同意了电子隐私信息中心的要求，将50万美元的罚金划拨给了它。【与此同时他自行决定，另拨出50万美元罚金，捐给圣克拉拉大学（Santa Clara University）的一个伦理中心，而威尔审判长本人恰好也是这所大学法学院的教师。】

    近似罚金并不是由科技公司发明的。这个原则非常古老，经常用来解决信托法领域某个反复出现的问题。比如富兰克林•罗斯福总统1938年创立了畸型儿基金会（March of Dimes Foundation）。当时罗斯福明确表示，这个基金会要与小儿麻痹症做斗争。后来美国的小儿麻痹症得到了控制，该基金会希望征得公众的同意，转而与其它疾病进行抗争。法庭认为，畸型儿基金会的这种做法非常近似罗斯福总统的初衷，因而引用了近似罚金原则，同意了该基金会的请求，

    到了上世纪80年代，近似罚金原则（或者是像理查德•蒲士纳法官在2004年的一次裁定中所说的那样——“其它什么东西借其之名”）逐渐进入了集体诉讼案的调解操作中。有些批评人士认为，近似罚金可能变成合法的“行贿基金”，因为无论是法官、原告律师，甚至连被告人都可以利用这笔钱进一步做有利于自己的事。过去的10个月里，有三家联邦上诉法院都驳回了“近以罚金”调解申请，因为他们在研究后都认为，这些接收罚金的慈善机构几乎与案件中的利益受侵害方没有任何关系。

    在集体诉讼案的调解过程中，原告律师最关心的是如何拿到最多的律师费，而被告企业最关心的是如何掏最少的钱平息事态。因此原告律师与被告为了达成目标，可能会牺牲受侵害方的利益。集体诉讼公平中心（Center for Class Action Fairness）的西奥多•弗兰克律师写道，近似罚金“为了使原告律师实际上获得最大份额的代理费，而掩饰了被告真正的和解成本”，因而可能导致滥用。

    例如在Google Buzz一案中，从表面上来看，原告的代理律师获得了总罚金的四分之一作为代理费，也就是810万美元中的210万。这听起来还好，属于正常水平。不过批评人士们可能会抗议道，这笔钱里没有一分钱花到了实际受侵害者的身上，而接收了近似罚金的慈善机构可能以前已经或多或少地受到过被告的资助。如果真是这样，那么律师们的律师费可能的确过高了，因为他们为受侵害群体争得的利益实在太少了。

    在Facebook一案中，律师费过高的可能性更为明显。如果调解方案获批，那么原告律师会得到1,000万美元，非营利机构也能拿到1,000万美元，实际受侵害者一分钱也拿不到。光是在表面上看起来就很不公平。而且Facebook本来就是某些受益机构背后的金主，即便没有这起官司，Facebook也可能通过其他渠道对他们进行捐赠。因此原告律师们实际上有可能获得这笔调解费的一半以上，看起来更是不公平。

    在本案的诉讼文件上，原告律师强调，调解内容还包括一些禁制令，利益受到侵害的用户未来可能会从这些禁制令中获得好处。理由是Facebook已经同意修改服务协议的部分条款，让用户有机会选择“不参与”赞助广告。然后原告律师表示，对于受侵害的用户来说，这些条款更改的有效程度居然价值整整1.03亿美元，因为用户们“现在有机会控制相当于X个月的广告资产的使用权。（X所表示的数据仍然处于保密状态）。

    刚刚过去的7月，电子隐私信息中心以及代表反对调解结果的受侵害群体的代理律师分别质疑了Facebook一案调解结果的正当性。电子隐私信息中心和其他三家关注网络隐私的组织要求法院采取透明的、公开审请的程序，来确定近似罚金的受益人。不过法庭尚未受理这些投诉。部分原因是由于这些要求刚刚提交到法庭，负责此案的露西•科荷法官就自动调离了此案。虽然她没有透露具体原因，但根据公开报道显示，她和她丈夫与即将获得调解费的一些慈善组织存在某些联系。

    有些其它调解案的近似罚金也获得了法院的批准，尽管其中可能不乏类似、甚至更严重的利益冲突。科荷法官在这个当口上选择避嫌，也不失为一种进步。

    译者：朴成奎

    How, then, could the parties -- again and again -- have overlooked EPIC when doling out the cash? How, indeed, when so many of the groups that the parties did select—like the YMCA of Greater Long Beach, Youth Radio of Oakland, the Brookings Institute (a regular Google beneficiary), and the MacArthur Foundation (a regular Facebook beneficiary) -- are hardly thought of as digital privacy watchdogs?

    Could it be that the defendants in each case blackballed EPIC precisely because it was too aggressively devoted to combatting the wrongs that allegedly harmed the class? Lead Google Buzz plaintiffs attorney Gary Mason declined to comment, explaining that settlement negotiations are confidential. Two lead plaintiffs attorneys in the Sponsored Stories case did not return calls.

    In the Google Buzz case in March 2011, EPIC and seven other privacy-focused nonprofits objected to their exclusion from the cy pres funds, protesting that the plaintiffs lawyers and Google had, in effect, arranged to give the majority of those funds "to organizations that are currently paid by Google to lobby for or to consult for the company." (The EFF, CDT, and CIS all reject that characterization of their relationship to Google. They aver, rather, their complete independence, and stress that any corporate donations they accept are "unrestricted" in nature—meaning that they come with no strings attached.)

    In May 2011, Chief Judge James Ware of the federal district court in San Jose granted EPIC's request, carving out a $500,000 tranche for it. (At the same time he spontaneously—without prompting from anyone—sliced off another $500,000 piece for an ethics center at Santa Clara University, a school where Judge Ware serves on the law school faculty.)

    Tech companies did not invent cy pres awards. The doctrine is ancient, having arisen to address a recurring problem in trusts law. For instance, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up the March of Dimes Foundation in 1938, he specified that it would fight polio. But once that disease was tamed, the foundation sought permission to fight other diseases. Invoking the cy pres doctrine, courts granted its request, finding that doing so would carry out Roosevelt's original intent as closely as possible.

    In the 1980s the cy pres doctrine—"or rather something parading in its name," as federal appeals court judge Richard Posner archly put it in a 2004 ruling—burrowed its way into the realm of class-action settlements. Critics have referred to cy pres awards as judicial "slush funds," since judges, plaintiffs lawyers, and—as the Google Buzz and Sponsored Stories cases suggest—even defendants can use them to further their own agendas. In the past ten months three federal appeals courts have struck down cy pres awards after concluding that they funded charities that had virtually nothing to do with the class members for whom the cases were ostensibly filed.

    The key recurring concern with any class action settlement is that plaintiffs attorneys, desiring to maximize their fees, and defendant corporations, eager to minimize total payout, will collude to achieve their goals at the expense of class members. Cy pres awards can be enlisted in that abusive process, attorney Theodore H. Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness, has written, by "disguising the true cost of a settlement to the defendant to maximize the share of the actual recovery received by the plaintiffs attorneys."

    For instance, in the Google Buzz case, on the face of things the plaintiffs attorneys were receiving about one-quarter of the total award -- $2.1 million of an $8.1 million fund -- which sounds well within the normal range. Yet a critic might protest that none of this particular award went to the actual class members, while much of it went to charities the defendant probably would have funded to some degree anyway. If so, then the attorneys fees may have been excessive given how little the lawyers actually won for the class.

    In the Facebook class action, the potential for fee inflation is even more palpable. If the deal is approved, the plaintiffs attorneys get $10 million, the nonprofits get $10 million, and the class members get zilch, which does not look great even on its face. To the extent that some of the nonprofits are also regular beneficiaries of Facebook's largesse, and would likely have gotten at least some of their cy pres money even without any lawsuit, the attorneys would be getting more than half the cash generated by the settlement, which looks even worse.

    In court papers supporting the deal, the plaintiffs stress that the Facebook settlement also includes injunctive relief from which class members may benefit in the future, because Facebook has agreed to fiddle with some of the fine print in its terms-of-service agreements and to give its users opportunities to "opt-out" of the Sponsored Stories program. The plaintiffs then claim that these structural changes are effectively worth --are you sitting down? -- $103 million to the class, because class members will "now have the opportunity to control the use of what is essentially a [redacted]/month advertising asset." (The redacted figure remains under seal.)

    In July, EPIC and attorneys representing other objecting class members each challenged the adequacy of the Facebook settlement. Alternatively, EPIC and three other privacy groups have asked the court to redetermine cy pres recipients using transparent, open-application procedures. These objections have not yet been ruled upon, in part because, as soon as they were lodged, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh recused herself from the case. Though she did not state her reasons, she and her husband had ties to some of the charities that stood to gain from the settlement, according to published reports

    Since other cy pres awards have been upheld despite similar or worse apparent conflicts, Judge Koh's sensitivity was at least progress of a sort.