Here's why some people are getting $20 checks from LinkedIn

If a friend or colleague or even you -- yes, YOU! -- finds a check from LinkedIn for $20.43 sitting in your mailbox, there's actually a pretty good reason for it.

The checks are part of a $13 million settlement that the company reached in 2015 with plaintiffs over, of all things, annoying emails the platform was sending to users.

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LinkedIn's Add Connections program allowed users to import their personal contacts into the company's system and then have invitations to connect sent out on their behalf. However, if a recipient of the invitation email didn't accept the invitation within a certain amount of time, LinkedIn would then send two follow up emails repeating the invitation.

The key to the lawsuit, though, was in the user's consent. From the official settlement website:

The Court found that members consented to importing their contacts and sending the connection invitation, but did not find that members consented to LinkedIn sending the two reminder emails. The Plaintiffs contend that LinkedIn members did not consent to the use of their names and likenesses in those reminder emails. 

After the lawsuit was settled, LinkedIn made the promise to make their email system a bit less terrible, promising limits on the frequency and volume of email notifications.

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If, reading this, you're suddenly getting excited for a little extra scratch, some bad news: you're about a year late as the deadline to claim eligibility as part of the settlement was December 14, 2015.

Still, if you did submit your eligibility by that deadline, congratulations, you're getting $20 for being annoyed by spammy emails. The next round of Starbucks is on you.

Additional reporting by Adario Strange