Facebook Settles Message Privacy Class Action Lawsuit

Facebook has reportedly agreed to settle a class action lawsuit over allegations it used information shared in private messages for advertising purposes, according to documents filed Wednesday in California federal court.

Under the terms of the proposed Facebook settlement, the social networking giant will not offer monetary compensation to Class Members, but it has agreed to stop using Facebook users’ private message data for targeted advertising purposes.

The Facebook class action settlement does not release monetary or damages claims, so it may be possible for the plaintiffs to pursue such claims in the future.

“In sum, the Settlement achieves significant business practice changes, and benefits the Settlement Class now, without the inherent risks of continued litigation and without requiring Class Members to release any claims they may have for monetary relief,” the Facebook class action settlement documents state.

The Facebook message privacy class action lawsuit was filed by plaintiffs Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley on Dec. 30, 2013. They claimed that Facebook read users’ private Facebook messages without their consent with the goal of generating “Likes” for web pages and creating targeted advertisements.

The Facebook class action lawsuit asserted claims under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act and California’s Unfair Competition Law. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs filed a motion seeking preliminary approval of the Facebook privacy class action settlement.

Facebook previously sought to dismiss the message privacy class action lawsuit, but its efforts were unsuccessful. In May 2016, the court granted in part plaintiffs’ motion for Class certification. The judge certified an injunctive relief Class but denied certification for the proposed damages Class. U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton determined that not all members of the Class suffered identical damages and therefore each case would require an individual inquiry.

“Specifically, the Court certified for class treatment three specific alleged uses by Facebook of URLs included in private messages: (1) Facebook’s cataloging URLs shared in private messages and counting them as a ‘like’ on the relevant third-party website, (2) Facebook’s use of data regarding URLs shared in private messages to generate recommendations for Facebook users, and (3) Facebook’s sharing of data regarding URLs in messages (and attendant demographic data about the messages’ participants) with third parties,” the Facebook class action settlement documents state.

Facebook has reportedly stopped these practices and has confirmed that it no longer uses URLs shared in private messages for targeted advertising. According to the Facebook privacy class action settlement documents, Facebook has also updated its policies to be more transparent about how it collects and utilizes information shared with the Facebook messaging feature.

Top Class Actions will post updates to this class action settlement as they become available. For the latest updates, keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter. You can also receive notifications when this article is updated by using your free Top Class Actions account and clicking the green “Follow Article” button at the top of the post.

The plaintiffs are represented by Michael Sobol, David Rudolph, Melissa Gardner, Rachel Geman and Nicholas Diamand of Lieff Cabraser Hemann & Bernstein LLP and Hank Bates, Allen Carney and David Slade of Carney Bates & Pulliam PLLC.

The Facebook Message Privacy Class Action Lawsuit is Campbell, et al. v. Facebook Inc., Case No. 4:13-cv-05996, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On March 3, 2020, an objection claiming that the Facebook privacy class action provided only “worthless injunctive relief” was rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.