Facebook’s controversial and widely-disdained Beacon service, which it originally introduced in November, has led to the company being slapped with another class action lawsuit. The suit alleges that Facebook never sought user approval before collecting personal information, and was also keeping tabs on people who weren’t even signed up for Facebook.
The class action lawsuit was filed on August 12 in the California Northern District Court, and includes the following passages (you can see the full text below):
“The Beacon program sent information regarding specific user transactions on Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliates’ websites to Facebook regardless of whether the user was a Facebook member or not. Thus, no consent was sought, nor was any consent obtained from persons who utilize the Facebook Beacon Activated Affiiliate’s website who were not Facebook members…”
“It was deceptive because, in almost every instance, the information sharing was contrary to the stated privacy policies of the Facebook website and every other Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliate that had signed up for the program.”
A number of Beacon affiliates besides Facebook are named in the suit, including Blockbuster, Fandango, Hotwire, Travel Inc, Overstock, Zappos, and Gamefly.
Beacon’s launch last November was quickly met with waves of criticism, as users were automatically signed up for the ad system. Facebook eventually change its policies to make the ad system opt-in (effectively killing it for most people), but the damage had already been done. Earlier this year, a woman sued Blockbuster for sharing her rental choices with her peers.
Beacon hasn’t been Facebook’s only privacy misstep. The social network instituted a system earlier this year that added images of a user’s friends to some advertisements, confusing and upsetting many users. Our own $25 million suit against Facebook for the unlawful use of Michael Arrington’s likeness to endorse shoddy products is still pending.
Beacon is completely useless. I don’t know anyone who uses it. Facebook should stick to developing better ideas.
Lawsuits always happen when a company gets as big as Facebook.
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
I agree, lawsuits are bound to happen once a company gets as big as Facebook. Nonetheless, what they were doing was not right. Information about your personal purchases should not be shared with anyone if you don’t approve. Let’s just see what happens when the trial takes place.
http://www.KillerStartups.com
Doubleclick did this for years. Luckily for them they were in NY.
Does this mean that if Facebook loses the case, every facebook user will be compensated. You can send my check to my house so that I can take part in this… http://www.John....htm?s=hiac2008
Considering that the suit alleges Facebook kept tabs on those who never even signed up, everyone who has ever visited one its affiliates should get a cut.
That would be amazing, yet impractical to happen. Right?
If they win, plaintiff attorneys will be the only ones to get paid. The rest of us will get a discount on Facebook’s services.
Facebook has been trying to build an identity management and permissions system for the entire Internet. Beacon should disqualify them from managing such a system.
Yes! We too noticed some of our friend’s images were being used in ads saying “Such and such recommends this movie!” That’s pretty crappy if you ask us…
This is what happens when you become the number 1 social networking site in the world…..Lawsuits are then just around the corner.
How much is this costing Facebook on an ongoing basis?
What’s Facebook?
Facewhat?
geez…..again?!——http://coolcolumn.com
Business practices suck there. No surprise.
Not the only issue with FB either.
Anybody for “worms”??? ( And I don’t mean the kind you fish with either)
Dont miss out on your slice of the pie. Gotta love this..
http://www.new....gid=27020760473
I find it ironic that Facebook is being taken to court on this. I am a member, and I was sending out e-mails to promote a show I’m in. I sent the same e-mail to around 8 people. Then I get a warning that I might be spamming. I wasn’t, but I figured, fine, I’ll post on some groups instead.
So I post to around 4 groups, and suddenly my account is disabled. I have never done this on Facebook before, although I did it all the time on MySpace. Yet, within 20 minutes, I went from a normal account to being disabled. It’s been a day and a half, and I’m still not reinstated.
I’ve been a member of facebook for at least a year, and never did anything like this before. Even assuming that I was spamming (which I don’t think I was), this seems a bit harsh. I was doing it all by hand, so I probably sent one message every minute or so. Not typical spam protocol. The only real issue was that I used the exact same text in the posts.
So Facebook can misuse my info to advertise to my friends, but I can’t use legitimate search means to promote something people might be interested in.
Seems like a problem to me.
Someone isn’t telling the truth about Beacon now being opt-in. I created a Facebook account about a week ago. Later, I added a few items to my Blockbuster queue. The app started loading the movies I added to my Facebook profile and no one had asked me for my consent. I”m sure that Facebook would say this was an “oversight.” I’m saying that they’re not asking for people to opt-in.
When will people figure it out!!! Facebook is pure EVIL!!!
When they discover Multiply.com. It’s almost as evil as MySp@ce.
that’s very usefull and wonderfull
I joined facebook about ten months ago and two months after I joined I decided to do some research on facebook. I found out facebook is actually doing many evil things many users don’t know about.