Clearview AI, a facial recognition start-up that scraped more than 30 billion photos from social media, can’t afford to pay the settlement bill from its class-action lawsuit so is offering Americans a stake in its company instead.
The New York-based company was sued in a federal court in Chicago in litigation that has proven so costly that Clearview AI says it will go bankrupt before making it to trial.
The unusual settlement offers members of the lawsuit a collective 23 percent stake in Clearview AI; an amount that is currently valued at $52 million, per The New York Times.
Members of the class could be literally anyone in the United States who has posted a photo of themselves online so anyone who does submit a claim could be entitled to a cut of the proceeds from a public flotation or an acquisition.
So let me see if I get this straight:
Some guy robs you and since they can’t pay the settlement bill for robbing you, they are offering you a stakeholder position in their further crimes?
Devoid of ethics. Company using stolen goods to get started offers profits from stolen goods going forward. How TF is this legal? That’s a rhetorical question fwiw.
Nothing more valuable than shares in a company in such a poor financial state that it can’t pay its own settlements.
If companies are people we should execute one
Their business is built entirely on stolen data so they’re selling off a minority of shares.
Fuck these clowns.
