Legal Research

The Canadian Facebook Privacy Class Action

By Omar Ha-Redeye

Concerns over privacy issues with Facebook are not new, but the more recent changes did create expectations of intervention through the Privacy Commissioner.

I’m not sure if anyone expected a class action lawsuit in Canada.

Not surprisingly, Merchant Law Group LLP is heading this claim, “for improper handling of confidential information and privacy issues.”

Tony Merchant said,

What Facebook is doing is a bait-and-switch process. The bait is that they wanted to be able to do demographic sales targeting, and the switch is that to do that, they needed to get into people’s personal information.

Damages have not been established, because nobody knows how much Facebook profited from the information.

Meanwhile, Facebook has recently introduced some changes that limit access to information by 3rd-Party applications, first announced in 2009 in response to inquiries by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner. Back in 2008, I did an interview with Lisa Feinberg, a law student at the University of Ottawa who was involved in filing the complaint.

You see Canada, you can make changes that affect the world. Even if it is limited to Facebook.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on July 04, 2010 (boomark / email).