Sony has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought about by the 2011 PlayStation Network data breach, an event that resulted in the theft of names, addresses and potentially even credit card information belonging to 77 million members.
According to a report from Polygon, Sony has signed a preliminary agreement valued at $15 million. Instead of cash, however, plaintiffs would receive goods and services from Sony such as free PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable games, free themes, free subscriptions to PlayStation Plus, free subscriptions to the Music Unlimited service and free SOE Station cash (Sony's virtual currency to buy in-game items).
Those that didn't participate in Sony's "Welcome Back" package following the security breach will get to choose two separate benefit options or two instances of one PSN benefit option. Individuals that did accept Sony's package can receive a game benefit, a theme benefit or a PlayStation Plus subscription benefit.
Lawsuit participants will receive benefits on a first-come, first-serve basis. All of this, of course, is dependent on the judge signing the settlement.
Sony was hit with a couple of massive data breaches back in 2011 and has been working to clean up the mess ever since. The first breach in April forced Sony to shut down the PlayStation Network for several weeks.
The company hired a former Homeland Security officer to help get things in order after the breach but of course, the damage had already been done. At the time, Sony estimated it would cost $171 million to clean up the mess associated with the breach.
