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Facebook has asked a California federal court to dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims its Messenger app gathers user data, insisting that the plaintiffs failed to show any real injury.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg is overseeing the case and acknowledged that Facebook users’ right to privacy is a “hot issue.”
Although the judge noted that Facebook has undeniably monetized user data, Judge Seeborg has not said if he plans to keep the Messenger class action claims afloat or if he plans to dismiss them.
Plaintiffs in the Facebook class action lawsuit claim that the social media company used their Messenger app to harvest data about Android users’ call and text logs.
Information compromised allegedly included phone call dates and times, phone numbers called, phone call duration, and whether calls were incoming, outgoing, or missed. This data was then reportedly sold to advertisers for a tidy profit.
“In a sense, user data is the lifeblood of the online advertising industry,” the March 2018 Facebook Messenger class action lawsuit states.
The social media company reportedly gained access to consumer call information by requesting permission to see user contact lists.
Facebook allegedly stopped the data farming practice in October 2017 after the Android vulnerability was no longer able to be used. Although the practice has ended, plaintiffs in the Facebook class action claim that their right to privacy was breached by the data farming scheme.
Facebook denied the allegations in a March 2018 blog post, claiming that “call and text history logging is part of an option feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android.” If users opted out of the sharing feature, any data saved previously would reportedly be deleted.
“We never sell this data, and this feature does not collect the content of your text messages or calls,” Facebook said, directly contradicting the plaintiffs’ class action claims.
In December 2018, Judge Seeborg criticized the class action lawsuit and encouraged the plaintiffs to be more specific when making claims about Facebook’s alleged data mining.
“If you’re making claims of misrepresentation and omission, you need specific language,” Judge Seeborg said during a dismissal hearing.
At the time of the hearing, Judge Seeborg mentioned that he was leaning towards dismissing the class action with leave to amend – meaning that the plaintiffs would be able to make changes to the case and try again. However, the judge has not made an official ruling.
Facebook’s attorneys agreed with Judge Seeborg’s assertions and went further to argue that the plaintiffs did not suffer from any “concrete and particularized injury” due to the alleged data collection.
“It must be something beyond the boiler plate invasion of privacy,” Facebook’s attorney argued. “It must be coupled with some promise not to do something, or particularly sensitive information that could create some kind of risk.”
The plaintiffs aim to represent a Class of Android users who installed Facebook Messenger and/or Facebook Lite apps and allowed Facebook to access their contact list. The plaintiffs also propose to represent a subclass of the same consumers from New York.
Plaintiffs and the proposed Class are represented by Neal J. Deckant of Bursor & Fisher PA.
The Facebook Messenger Class Action Lawsuit is Williams, et al. v. Facebook Inc., Case No. 3:18-cv-01881, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
UPDATE: On Aug. 29, 2019, a federal judge decided that Facebook must face a class action alleging that the Messenger app records call and text logs of Android users.
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