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Facebook Sued For Violating Wiretap Laws
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook is being sued in multiple states for tracking its users even after they logged out of the service. All the lawsuits allege the company violated federal wiretap laws. The most recent lawsuit, filed by a Mississippi woman, says: 'Leading up to September 23, 2011, Facebook tracked, collected, and stored its users’ wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to portions of their internet browsing history even when the users were not logged-in to Facebook. Plaintiff did not give consent or otherwise authorize Facebook to intercept, track, collect, and store her wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to her internet browsing history when not logged-in to Facebook.'"
"The user is intentionally using software that sends tracking information (cookies) to Facebook"
No, that is not the case at all. If it were, this would be a different story.
We're talking here about third-party cookies. These are images that come from servers OTHER THAN the one you are visiting. But when that image is downloaded from that foreign server, it gets a record of your ip and what the referring domain is.
The issue here is that while you can control what websites you visit, you have no control over what image bugs or javascript they install on their site, nor is there any way to tell in advance what they are. So you aren't voluntarily doing anything at all; in fact most of the time you probably don't even know it is happening. That does not fit the definition of "intentional". On the contrary; it is downright sneaky.
Tracking bugs like that are completely unethical, and if they are not in fact illegal they should be.