A federal judge today signed off on a controversial class-action settlement in which Facebook will pay $20 million for putting users in the social networking site's "Sponsored Stories" advertising program without their permission.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco approved the revised deal months after he said he had "serious concerns" because it originally provided a $10 million payout to attorneys suing Facebook and $10 million to activist and research groups in what is known as a cy pres award.

Under the new plan Seeborg approved, the same $20 million pot is to be shared by charities, the class-action attorneys and the 125 million U.S. Facebook users who appeared in a "Sponsored Story" without consent.

Only a small fraction of plaintiffs in a class-action usually fill out the necessary paperwork to collect their rewards. If everybody did in this instance, that would amount to about 2 cents each.

Under California law, Seeborg has said each plaintiff could be awarded as much as $750 if the case went to trial. Under the new plan, Seeborg has the power to reduce the amount to each victim or give the pot to charity in the event of overwhelming response from class members.

Facebook agreed to give its adult users the right to "control" but not eliminate how the social-networking site uses their faces in ads under Facebook's “Sponsored Stories” program. Minors have the ability to completely opt out, but privacy groups said minors should automatically be opted out. The judge said the accord had "significant value."

“Sponsored Stories” basically turns the act of pressing the Facebook "Like" button into a potential commercial endorsement. If a Facebook user clicks the "Like" button for a product or service with a Facebook page, that user's profile picture and name may be automatically used in advertisements for that product or service that appear in the their friends' Facebook pages. Facebook also reserves the right to show such ads on sites other than Facebook.

The suit, (.pdf) filed in April 2011, claimed Facebook did not adequately inform people of the "Sponsored Stories" feature or give them a way to opt out of the advertising program, which began in January 2011. Under the deal, in which Facebook admits no wrongdoing, Facebook has agreed to clarify its terms of service.