Judge Tosses $15B Facebook Cookie-Tracking Class Action Lawsuit

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Facebook has managed to dodge yet another set of class action lawsuits alleging their user tracking violated privacy laws.

According to the Facebook tracking class action lawsuit, Facebook tracked user activity on the Internet after users logged out of the site. The class action lawsuit states that when users visited websites that had Facebook “like” or “share” buttons, cookies sent that information about user visits to Facebook. The users were seeking $15 billion in compensation.

While U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila dismissed the proposed Facebook class action lawsuit, he did allow the plaintiffs the opportunity to amend their complaint. As it was presented, the plaintiffs did establish that their personal information had value, but they were unable to adequately establish how that value was diminished with Facebook’s cookie-tracking software.

Judge Davila explained, “The court accepts as true plaintiffs’ ascription of some degree of intrinsic value to their personal information for this motion. But what plaintiffs have failed to do is adequately connect this value to a realistic economic harm or loss that is attributable to Facebook’s alleged conduct.”

The plaintiffs sought to represent a Class of individuals who used Facebook with an active account between May 2010 and September 2011. Their accusations against Facebook included violations of the Wiretap Act, the Stored Communications Act, California’s Invasion of Privacy Act, other California consumer protection laws and a number of common law claims.

Similar class action lawsuits have been filed against Google and LinkedIn, and those plaintiffs also established value of their information, but they were unable to show how the information was devalued by the user tracking software.

Judge Davila also referred to other court decisions, stating that users do not have an expectation of privacy for visiting other websites because Internet service providers use these same IP addresses to route user requests.

In May 2012, Facebook was first hit with the user tracking lawsuit, just a short time after celebrating its successful IPO. Twenty-one cases from across the country were included in the original class action lawsuit. The plaintiffs accused the company of invading privacy by continuing to track user data online after they had logged out of their Facebook accounts.

Facebook has had a history of tracking class action lawsuits filed against the company, but because browser cookies are not considered wiretaps and plaintiffs have a difficult time showing they have been harmed by the tracking, the Facebook tracking lawsuits have been dismissed.

Later, in October 2012, Facebook filed a motion to dismiss the case due to the defendant’s claim of “utter lack of allegations of any injury” to the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs may choose to amend their complaint and present it to the court. The deadline to file an amended class action lawsuit is Nov. 30, 2015.

The plaintiffs are represented by Paul R. Kiesel of Kiesel Law LLP, James P. Frickleton ofBartimus Frickleton Robertson & Goza PC, Stephen G. Grygiel of Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White LLC and David A. Straite of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP among others.

The Facebook User Tracking Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Facebook Internet Tracking Litigation, Case No. 5:12-md-02314, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Mar. 10, 2016, Facebook asked a federal judge to dismiss the privacy class action lawsuit because the plaintiffs failed to show that they’ve actually been injured.

UPDATE 2: On June 10, 2016, Facebook vigorously defended its motion to dismiss a $15 billion MDL over its purported use of cookies to track users’ internet activities, saying the users amended complaint still fails to show economic harm.