Despite phenomenal success, big tech and social media giants like Facebook, Google and Apple seem to have a constant flow of litigation directed at them. One of the latest is a consumer class-action claim filed in a federal district court in California against Facebook. It claims that the massive social networking conglomerate must pay damages to customers whose privacy was exploited by the company for the purpose of gaining more advertising revenues.
The most recent development in the case is the federal district court's rejection of Facebook's motion to dismiss the case. The Judge ordered the case to move forward due to Facebook's inability to offer an adequate reason why it was justified in scanning members' private messages in order to create targeted ads. The plaintiffs claimed that the company violated both state and federal laws by intercepting private messages on the Internet.
They claim violations of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California's Invasion of Privacy Act. The court held that the company could not explain how the practice was an integral part of its normal business activities. The company's argument, that is must handle the content of private messages to ensure proper delivery, was rejected by the court.
The court held that customers retain an expectation of privacy regarding their private messages. Facebook also alleged that the case should not move forward because the scanning practice ended in 2012. The Court apparently agreed with plaintiffs that the company could resume such practices at any time, putting plaintiffs essentially in imminent danger of privacy violations. The federal district court located in California has not yet declared whether the class defined by the plaintiffs in this consumer class-action claim will be certified. It would seem that the nature of the damages to each plaintiff would be generally of a similar nature and therefore subject to the kind of universality required by the class action law
Source: techtimes.com, "US Judge: Facebook Cannot Avoid Class Action Lawsuit Over Scanning Users' Private Messages for Advertising Purposes", Sumit Passary, Dec. 26, 2014
No Comments
Leave a comment