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Facebook Sued for Privacy Violation

By Carolyn Elefant

A photographer, an actress, a college student and two minors filed suit against Facebook on Monday, alleging that the site violates state privacy law and misleads members into believing that the information that they post can be accessed only by designated "friends" and not third parties, reports the Associated Press. Plaintiffs also claim that Facebook engages in data mining of members' information without fully disclosing those practices. Legal Newsline notes that the Facebook lawsuit was filed by famed Texas trial lawyer Mark Lanier, best known for his involvement in Vioxx litigation, not to mention his firm's lavish holiday parties. Experts don't expect the suit to get very far, characterizing it as either a "kitchen sink" approach (TechCrunch) or a "jumbled mess" (Professor Eric Goldman, as quoted at CNET). As Larry Magid explains on CNET, the plaintiffs seem to have raised every possible issue in the hopes that one would stick, because the suit has so little merit. As TechCrunch describes, the suit essentially complains "about many of the very mechanisms that make Facebook a social network." Plaintiffs in the case appear to have engaged in run of the mill socializing on Facebook: sharing photos, writing status updates and similar things....

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on August 19, 2009 (boomark / email).