Facebook Privacy Suit Seeks $15 Billion

An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Facebook may be focusing on their IPO today, but a complaint filed in federal court has given them something else to think about. The filing consolidates 21 separate but similar cases and alleges Facebook invaded users privacy by tracking their browsing behavior even after they had logged out of the site. The claim seeks $15 billion in damages. 'If the claimants are successful in their case against Facebook, they could prevent Menlo Park from collecting the huge amount of data it collects about its users to serve ads back to them. Like the previous lawsuits, Facebook is once again being accused of violating the Federal Wiretap Act, which provides statutory damages per user of $100 per day per violation, up to a maximum per user of $10,000. The complaint also asserts claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, various California Statutes and California common law.'"

Comments

Damnit!

[Jeng]

Now I won't get my $15 coupon off a Facebook branded hoodie as part of a settlement.

I guess I should have created a Facebook account.

Lawsuits for everyone.

[simplexion]

If you want privacy, don't sign up to Facebook.

Re:Lawsuits for everyone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you don't sign up to Facebook, they are tracking you because of their little F icon and/or scripts/cookies are being loaded up by your web browser on any webpage you are visiting.

So your advice is insufficient. The only way to make sure is to nuke them from orbit. i.e. increase the damage and scope of the lawsuit to non-users.

Re:Lawsuits for everyone.

[Dan1701]

This is interesting because it may finally set limits as to how aggressively a company may collect and utilise data on users. Up to now Facebook has been a private company and hasn't needed to exploit the vast treasure trove of user data it has. The IPO changes everything now; I do wonder why on earth they did it, as they surely didn't need the money, but now Facebook will be in thrall to its shareholders.

From now on, the shareholders will want to maximise profits. The one thing Facebook has that it can exploit is the user data. Up to now, they haven't really maximised the earning potential of this data; when they do they'll be treading a very, very fine line between profit and annoying users and worse still will not easily be able to tell when they've gone too far. I would wager that they're going to overdo it, and force the state to step in and set legal limits on them.

Re:Lawsuits for everyone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the idea that one should just avoid the service is reasonable. However, the conditions under which people signed up may have shifted AFTER they signed up. The privacy situation at Facebook started shifting a LOT and often a few years back. So under the conditions promised, one might have signed up and then they changed those conditions unbeknownst to you.

The idea of court action is that the person has promised something and then changed what they're doing. So if I guarantee you privacy and you sign up for a great free service, and later discover that it was basically the old bait and switch, then you have good reason to be upset.

So the idea that if you don't like alligators you should avoid swamps is simplistic; if you were promised no swamps (cuz you were trying to avoid them because you don't like alligators) and then you find yourself getting eaten alive, I say you have cause.

Re:Lawsuits for everyone.

[KiloByte]

Even if you don't sign up to Facebook, they are tracking you because of their little F icon and/or scripts/cookies are being loaded up by your web browser on any webpage you are visiting.

Nobody says you have to click the little F icon!

Even if you don't click that F icon, they still track you.

Blocking referer on third-party requests helps (and should be mandatory in all decent browsers! (ext for FF)), but really, unless you adblock all of {facebook,fb,fbcdn}.{com,net} and probably more, Facebook will get a lot of data about you and your browsing patterns even if you don't use it.