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If there is a reader who is interested in objecting, I am willing to take a closer look at the settlement to evaluate whether an objection is feasible.

As an obvious starting point for your objection (if you wind up filing one), note that it appears that the $15 voucher can only be spent in the Symantec Online Store. And the Symantec Online Store (like many other software companies’ online stores) is somewhat notorious for selling products at a significantly higher price than can be obtained in the retail market elsewhere. So the value of your voucher is reduced (or even eliminated) by the fact that you are paying a higher starting price for the privilege of using it.

For example, at the time I’m typing this, Norton 360 3.0 Premier 1User/3PC is $99.99 at the Symantec Online Store, but $81.99 with free shipping at Amazon.com. So even with the voucher, you wind up paying a higher price at the Symantec store. There are other products where the voucher winds up at least saving you money, but nowhere near as much money as you might expect.

So the only option with a guaranteed, predictable value is the $2.50 check — and for many people, $2.50 falls into the category of “is this even worth my time to drive to my bank and deposit this?”

Meanwhile, the named plaintiffs will probably each receive $5000 cash, and the attorneys will certainly receive much more than that.

I have not yet received notice, but likely should as a long time Symantec/Norton user. Hower, I would point out that, due to retailer discounts and mail in rewards/rebate cards from Symantec over the past years, I have paid less than $0.00 (plus tax) to purchase their products for my use on multiple computers. Thus, any award to me as part of the class action would both well exceed my economic damages and be against my interests in their continued ability to devote resources to updating my virus definition files.

I’ll let you know if I get a notice, as I most certainly object.

The $15.00 coupon certainly does me no good (I forwarded a copy of this to Walter as well) because I no longer use Symantec and as Phaedrus observes, $2.50 is hardly worth the trip to the bank to deposit it.

I’m actually surprised they weren’t also sued over the practice that finally pissed me off enough to switch to another product. Thirty days before my subscription was up for renewal, Norton Antivirus kept popping up nag screens several times a day to remind me the subscription was expiring and asking me to renew for one more year. I finally gave in and renewed, just to stop the interuptions but the renewal period did not add a year from the time the subsciription was originally set to expire, it started from the date I actually renewed. So the Norton subscription night as well be for just 11 months, because if you renew the first time the nag screen pops up, you just lost 30 days worth of your exisiting subscription.

What’s involved in objecting to this settlement?

We got one too, and I also noticed how puny the pay-out to the ripped off customers was to be in comparison to the lawyers. What a joke.

Jonathan Bailey, the practice you’re complaining about — upgrades instantly ending your current subscription — is exactly what they were sued for in the action they’re currently settling.

It should also be noted that they are not promising to change this practice in any way; they are just promising to more clearly disclose it.

Phaedrus, thanks for the clarification. I’ll confess I didn’t read the settlement notice too closely because my head was spinning a bit in reaction to the numbers and I was focused a bit more on the loss of previous functionality aspect of it too. Now that I have read through it again, it’s a lot clearer.

I actually remeber calling up Symantec on one occasion, thinking there was an error on the new expiration date and being assured that the “error” would be corrected. I didn’t follow up on it again as Ijust didn’t have the time to waste on it.

This “settlement” disgusts me, and I’m an attorney as well. Maybe the practice of lawyers taking on matters such as these where an identifiable class has been ripped off a gigantic sum of money (collectively), the settlement of which ALWAYS consists of “coupons” or other incentives, of course only spendable on the defendant’s products and/or services but where the law firm enjoys huge cash settlements for “attorney fees,” should itself be subject to lawsuit? I’m a member of the injured class in this matter…but I’d like a piece of what these lawyers are getting (and claiming to represent ME no less!), or at least a reasonable settlement offer–like free Norton Anti-virus for a year or two. The applicable court should reject this offer.

Ok, I think we all have had enough of being jerked around by programs that we pay for that cost us more time and agravation and extra computer maintenace than we should have to deal with. I payed subscriptions for the Norton Antivirus Software by Symantec and had plenty of problems with the renewal process. It was extremely agravating trying to solve the issues that renewing caused on my computer system. The second time it was almost time to renew the subscription my computer so the program gave me lots of problems again before the time was up on the subscription. Now that I am looking back on those issues it just reminds me of the irratation I had at the time I was trying to repair and I get all frustrated again over the damage that was done to my computer. I would like to be involved with the lawsuit but the settlement is insuffiant I think we should all be at the very least reimbursed for what we paid out to Symantec for our renewals.

Of course, the issue isn’t what as we as consumers would want in a settlement (or in a verdict if the case went to trial). What I would want in a settlement is a million dollars and a pony. The issue that the court has to consider when deciding whether or not to approve this settlement is what our claims are actually worth — based on the likelihood of success at trial and what the likely amount of a successful verdict would be — and whether or not this settlement reasonably reflects that work.

That being said, this settlement appears to fall into the category that a number of judges and commentators have complained about recently. Doing my best to summarize their argument, either this set of claims has a significant value or it does not.

If this set of claims has a significant value, then the attorneys would appear to be poorly representing their class by accepting this settlement, because the award given to the average class member is insignificant, and many class members will undoubtedly receive no award at all (while the named plaintiffs and the attorneys receive much larger rewards). The judge should presumably respond by rejecting the settlement, and perhaps appointing new attorneys who will represent the class members’ claims more effectively.

If this set of claims does not have a significant value, then the attorneys are simply attempting to extract a nuisance settlement for a worthless case, and the judge should presumably respond by dismissing the case and denying attorneys’ fees completely.

I stopped using Norton a long time ago but for another reason. My copy kept reinstalling itself and eventually said it would no longer function because it had been installed too many times. That irritated me enough to swear off Norton Symantec forever. Using it got me onto the settlement list though,

In all fairness,I don’t thing the settlement is entirely out of line. Think about it. Suppose you bought Norton Internet Security for $75 (I think I paid $65). If I re-upped 36 days early (about 10% of a year) I would lose $7.50. If I did it twice, I would have lost $15. If you only bought the anti-virus software you lost even less. If it happened to you more than twice I say shame on you, idiot.

You don’t really get much value-added with the full product. The firewall, for instance, isn’t much better than the one supplied by Microsoft and if you’re behind a network firewall or even an NAT router then it probably isn’t needed at all. Kind of like wearing a condom AND never engaging in sex. What’s needed most is virus protection and one that connects to your FWIW: I’ve been using AVG products. The AVG virus software is FREE (albeit not easy to find).

The issue of attorneys’ fees and satisfactory settlements aside, Symantec deserves all the grief it gets for all of the reasons those of you who have written into this site before me have identified.

Here’s the latest in Symantec irritation: It automatically shuts off your internet service if your Symantec subscription should run out. No warning, no signal that “We have terminated your internet service”, just an inability to connect with your ISP.

I just got finished dealing with this and it took two days, three hours with Verizon, a twenty five dollar Ethernet cable (Verizon said I had “a bad cable”) and, finally, a consultant who identified the problem in thirty seconds. He says this “Happens all the time”. Cost to me besides my time? The $25 cable of course, a $95 consult fee and, oh yes, an hour and a half of grief in renewing my Symantec subscription, removing their old program and installing the new one.

I am Mad as Hell at today’s corporations who treat their consumer customers as potential “prey” instead of human beings.

Count me in as more than a little insulted. I wonder how many $2.50 rebates it would take to make them hurt even a little. I wish the attorneys would squeeze a little harder so Symantec would begin to feel what we have felt all these years as customers.

All other considerations aside, I cannot declare under penalty of perjury that I ordered from Symantec Renewal Center and not Symantec Online Store. I simply do not remember and did not keep records of all of my Norton transactions.

Just got my email Notice of Settlement and feel that the settlement is an insult to customers.
I left Norton a few months ago because, after being a loyal customer for several years, buying the original and upgrading regularly when asked, this last renewal they accused me of having a pirated copy of their software (this after at least four years of on-line renewals) and in order to convince them I was legit, I was to send them the original box and disk, from five years ago, proof of payment and a few other things.
I gave up and went to McAfee. At least Norton did refund this last on-line renewal payment. But they had no other response to my complaint letter. They just didn’t care.

I personally have been very pleased with Norton. I may have renewed as early as a month before expiration, had no idea that I cheated myself out of some subscription time and it really doesn’t matter to me. What bothers me most is the $2,225,000.00 to the attorneys. This settlement, if warranted, isn’t as much about making the consumer whole but about attorneys fleecing Symantec. Give the greedy attorney a $15,00 voucher and spread the fees amongst the consumers.