Payments start soon in privacy settlement ‘hundreds of millions’ could have qualified for

(NEXSTAR) – Keep an eye on your bank account, Venmo and Zelle the next few weeks. Money could be coming your way from a privacy class action settlement that “hundreds of millions” may have qualified for.

Tech giant Oracle agreed to pay out $115 million to settle claims it tracked people’s online and offline activity, then violated privacy by selling the information to third parties.

The settlement was granted final approval in November 2024 , so you may have forgotten about it since then, but payments are finally expected to start going out. According to court documents, the distribution of funds is set to start on Sept. 21 and largely wrap up by Dec. 7.

Eligible recipients may have received an email this week alerting them to the forthcoming payout. The size of each claimant’s payment was not disclosed.

Payments may come via Venmo, Zelle, direct deposit, paper check or online debit card, depending on what you selected as a preference when filing a claim.

After the first round of payments goes out, any leftover funds will be split up among eligible recipients and a second round of payments would be issued starting Dec. 21.

Oracle is one of the largest tech companies in the U.S., but people may not be as familiar with its software because a lot of their work happens behind the scenes . Banks use Oracle software to manage databases of their customers and customers’ transactions, hospitals may use it to store patient records, and retail businesses use it for inventory and sales.

“In the course of functioning as a worldwide data broker, Oracle has created a network that tracks in real time and records indefinitely the personal information of hundreds of millions of people,” the lawsuit alleged. The information allegedly shared includes online activity, like web browsing history, as well as offline activity, like in-store purchases and geolocation data.

“This process provides Oracle with a virtual panopticon: Oracle purports to have vision on virtually everything ascertainable in electronic form about Class members, from where they live, to the media they consume, to the things they buy, to the views they hold,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit goes on to claim that Oracle sold the personal information it collects to other companies, but because people “lack a direct relationship with Oracle,” they didn’t have any way to even consent to the information being shared.

Oracle denied all wrongdoing, but agreed to pay $115 million to settle the claims.

People were eligible for a payment if they lived in the United States for some period since Aug. 19, 2018, and your personal data “was acquired, captured, or otherwise collected by Oracle Advertising technologies or made available for use or sale by or through ID Graph, Data Marketplace, or any other Oracle Advertising product or service.”

That definition may have made it hard to know if you qualified, since it’s not easy to know if your data was impacted. Some of the affected people were notified by email (from Katz-Lacabe v. Oracle Settlement Administrator).

The deadline to file a claim has passed.