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Facebook Cookie Tracking Class Action Lawsuit
By Sarah Pierce
Facebook is in trouble – once again – for violating its users’ privacy, this time for illegally using cookies to track its users’ online activities. The latest Facebook class action lawsuit, filed by an Austin Facebook user who’s also a lawyer, is the third filed in the past two weeks after the social media website publicly acknowledged that it had fixed a cookie problem in September.
Plaintiff Michael Singley alleges in the Facebook cookie tracking class action lawsuit that Facebook violated the federal wiretap act by using electronic “cookies” to improperly track the Internet browsing patterns of its users. Cookies are small files placed on computers by websites and online services to identify users and track them for marketing purposes. The class action lawsuit further alleges Facebook broke the law by selling information of its users’ Internet behavior to other companies, such as marketing and ad companies who use that information to better target online consumers.
The Austin Facebook class lawsuit, like the other two suits, is seeking to represent the estimated 150 million Facebook users in the United States as a collective whole.
The Facebook cookie class action lawsuits were filed after an Australian blogger exposed that Facebook had installed cookies on his computer that tracked his browsing patterns online, even after he logged out of the Facebook site.
Facebook acknowledged the problem in a September statement but said it had been fixed, saying, “There was no security or privacy breach – Facebook did not store or use any information it should not have.” Facebook said it only used cookies to provide personalized content to users and to protect their security.
The Austin Facebook cookie tracking class action lawsuit claims Facebook is subject to statutory damages of up to $10,000 per violation of the wiretap act in addition to punitive damages and a potential court injunction against the company.
Facebook joins a long list of online companies facing class action lawsuits for fraudulently circumventing users’ Web-browser privacy settings to collect personal information without their permission and sharing it with other companies. Amazon, Interclick, Quantcast and Clearspring have all been hit with flash cookie class action lawsuits.
David Jacobs from the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington said one purpose of the federal wiretap act is to limit access to the computers and electronic information of computer users.
“It is not really surprising that this kind of secret monitoring would prompt a lawsuit. These are important questions, and the courts should consider them,” Jacobs said.
Updated October 12th, 2011
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10 thoughts onFacebook Cookie Tracking Class Action Lawsuit
True, the information exposing wire tapping, data breaches, GPS, GOGGLE ASSISTANT, MAP QUEST, CAMERA, MICROPHONE, heck list is extensive it all… ALL OF THE COLLECTIVE; ie, WE THE PEOPLE, believe it or not have agreed to everything we are experiencing based on the fact WE HAVE FORGOTTEN WE ARE THE. MAJORITY… ENERGY SHIFT, VIBRATING HIGHER, RELEASING THE MATRIX HAVING LEARNED OUR LESSONS…
THE HUMAN RACE HAS LOST ITS. HUMANITY, HUMANE IN SPECIES, INHUMANE TO ITS KIND…
i did not give permission to track and to send my information
Facebook is screwing us and making millions doing it in more ways than one. Beware as they may be setting you up for a “free trial of something you never agreed to” with barley noticeable questions on pages that have the yes box prechecked so when you go to another page you are automatically signed up and your bank account robbed leaving you wondering how it happened and fighting to get your money back not to mention the barrage of phone calls (because of the form “you” filled out online) from these online crooks.
I too would like to know exactly how one makes a claim. It is a bit disconcerting. The line has to be drawn somewhere!
Exactly how does one file a claim? I’ve searched all over and am lost.
They are STILL doing it! I searched for something and now every time I log into Facebook there is an ad for the product I was researching!
I agree as well. I noted ads relating to products or subjects I had been searching. I dont appreciate it – as I have searched for personals, medical, education, business, social services, law and statutes…you name it. Whatever I have a question about – I search. And its really unfair for me to have to clear my entire cache, browsing history etc everytime I log off just to try to maintain my privacy. Plus – it forces me to re-start some searches from scratch.
I kind of caught on to this when I repeatedly saw ads in the side area of my FB page for searches I had done. For instance if I looked up a product or service, FB would have that same type on the side. At first I thought it was my imagination. Then when I went to a site for Gold Medal Flour to check out their protein level on bread flour, listed at the bottom was information on a relative(that is a friend on FB)that had liked Gold Medal’s FB page and had the like button there for me to click. I was not logged in at the time so it gave me an aha moment and confirmed what I thought was my imagination. This does not sit well with me at all.
We are living in a world where privacy no longer exists.
they have cookies left on ‘related’ sites on my computer…..If I search for “facebook” cookies, 3 other sites also come up.