Facebook Users File Class Action Lawsuit Complaints Against Facebook Over Alleged Privacy Violations In Facebook Ad “Referrer Headers.”
A class action lawsuit was filed against Facebook Inc. (“Defendant”) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (captioned David Gould v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 5:10-cv-02389-PVT) alleging that Facebook shares its users’ sensitive personally identifiable information (“PII”) including users’ real names, places of birth, current city, schools attended, friend lists, pictures, genders, etc., with Facebook advertising partners in violation of it privacy policy and industry standards, according to class action news reports.
The Facebook class action complaint reportedly alleges that Facebook shares its users’ information with third party advertisers without consent; that when a Facebook user clicks on an advertisement posted on Facebook’s website, Facebook sends a “Referrer Header” to the Facebook advertiser that reveals the User ID of the user who clicked the ad, which allows the advertiser to obtain the user’s real name and other information the user makes publicly available on the user’s Facebook profile page (i.e., gender, friends, interests, places of birth, current city, schools attended, photos, etc.).
The Facebook privacy class action lawsuit is reportedly brought on behalf of a class of all Facebook users in the United States who clicked on a third-party advertisement displayed on Facebook between February 4, 2004 and May 21, 2010. For more information on the Facebook privacy class action lawsuit, read the class action complaint.
Update: On June 1, 2010 another class action lawsuit was reportedly filed against Facebook in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (styled Mike Robertson v. Facebook, Inc., Case No.5:10-cv-02408-JF).
If You Have Thoughts On The Facebook Privacy Class Action Lawsuit, Share Your Class Action Comments Below.
It has come to my attention that Facebook has posted information about my belonging to some of their pages on the internet as well as excerpts of commentary I have made on Facebook. I discovered this when I googled my own name and this information came up on google. I opted for every kind of privacy option avialable while I had a Facebook account. One of the pages shown by facebook as being associated to me is fairly risque and I have concerns that it may cause me problems in gaining employment as I live in a fairly conservative community,( Southwest Florida).
Hi Ken, I don’t know if you will get this, but if you do, please e-mail me, as I have not seen or heard from you in almost 30 years and I miss your smiling face, Mary
I just signed up on Facebook on March 23.. I DECLINED to give them the password to my email, which they had requested. Then mysteriously this list of possible friends pops up and somehow most are in my email contacts.
It seems likely that Facebook is forcing its way into your computer’s files whether you give permission or not. How else are these potential friends being generated? I smell potential illegal conduct by Facebook.
Can anyone tell me how this is different that the illegal acts of a hacker?
facebook has shared my email with advertising sites (spam chains) and i got bombraided with spam , these sites that info with other sites and i been getting bombraided with spam for the past 6 months