This article doesn't say what the six organizations were, which is the main contention of settlement (the fact that it was going to them, not what they are). But in case you were curious: AARP, World Privacy Forum, Carnegie Mellon University, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Harvard University and Stanford Law School.
World Privacy Forum has been on Google's "payroll", and is probably the one most likely suggested to be controversial: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/trade_association_... And despite having a recent post about Facebook from this summer, the most recent search result on their website for "Google" is from 2014.
Giving to law schools has also been a popular choice of Google's, often completely inexplicably coinciding with papers from those law schools supporting Google's legal positions, though there doesn't seem to be any overlap between the list in the link above and the universities being handed money here.
I think who is getting the money should be as important to the case as the fact money was going to them. The legal doctrine they used to distribute the money like this is supposed to be used to benefit the class members indirectly (because giving each party a small amount of money directly would be silly). How does giving money to Stanford and Harvard help anyone?
> In a 3-0 decision, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said it could not tell whether the $5.5 million settlement was fair, reasonable and adequate, and said a lower court judge should revisit the case.
That's a love-pat, figuratively coming out of petty cash.
> had been accused of exploiting loopholes in Apple Inc’s Safari and Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer browsers to help advertisers bypass cookie blockers.
Circumventing/exploiting security measures/vulnerabilities, to gain unauthorized access to a computer system, with intent to secretly violate the privacy of large numbers of people?
> He also called the awards to the privacy groups “particularly concerning.”
Wouldn't it be better here for a privacy group to drop a dime (to federal authorities), than to take the money?
I'm not sure what you mean by "drop a dime" in this context. It usually means calling the cops on someone, referencing a time long ago when making a call from a pay phone cost ten cents.
I think gp is referring to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which can lead to criminal charges. IANAL, but I don't think this would really apply probably because of Googles EULA.
Here is an article about when the Supreme Court kicked the case back to the Appellate court earlier this year, which goes a bit deeper into the legal issues behind it: https://www.geekwire.com/2019/seattle-area-att-employees-bri...