Classmates.com is paying $9.5 million to settle a lawsuit that alleges that the social network is duping people to buy paid memberships. Each of the 3.16 million users with “gold” premium accounts are expected to receive $3 for receiving messages that appear to be from old classmates. But they are fake.
Classmates is also facing a potential class-action lawsuit that alleges privacy violations. The social network changed the default settings to make information more public. Classmates is owned by United Online. [MediaPost]