Facebook Being Sued Over Mining of Private Messages

Kimomaru writes "Two Facebook users are trying to start a class action lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly mining information from private messages with the intention of selling is to advertisers (full complaint PDF). It's not the first time a social medial player has been in the press over privacy or security issues. But when the services are provided free of charge, does the user have a realistic expectation of privacy or security, especially when it's understood that the user's data is being mined for advertising? If not, should social media networks be allowed to use words like 'private' (as in private messaging) or 'security' to describe their services?"

Comments

Facebook lied in their privacy policy.

[Animats]

The complaint makes a key point. Facebook lied in their privacy policy. See page 19 of the complaint, "Facebook Fails to Disclose That Its Private Message Processes Read, Acquire, and Use Private Message Content, in Violation of Its Express Agreements With Facebook Users." This looks like a clear ECPA violation.

Re:Really?

[ackthpt]

It's Facebook. Is it reasonable to expect complete privacy with any part of it? Email at least has some expectation of privacy, but even there, the big providers scan your email for targeted advertising.

I really don't think a reasonable person expects a lot of "privacy" at Facebook, certainly "private messages" are only private from other users, not Facebook bots...

If a message is stated as "Private" it should be treated entirely as private. I think that implication would hold up in any court as a reasonable expectation, regardless of how Facebook mines Public or Shared content. Dangerous precedent otherwise.