p2pnet - rss feed: Facebook faces new Beacon class action
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- Dear, dear. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has another nasty class action looming.
“Did Facebook and Blockbuster violate a video privacy law when movie choices made by Facebook members were made available to others?” - p2pnet posted in April, going on »»»
The question was asked by James Grimmelmann, associate professor at the New York Law School, last year.
“The case against Blockbuster is quite straightforward,” Computerworld had him saying, going on, “I’m surprised that there haven’t been lawsuits already in terms of Blockbuster.”
Facebook’s Beacon program, designed to track members around the web for the benefit of advertisers, may be dead, kind of, but its memory, and its stink, linger on.
Cathryn Elaine Harris, from Texas, has sued Blockbuster, saying it violated the federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing information about her movie rentals and sales with Facebook without first getting her written consent, says Silicon Valley Insider.
She now wants class-action status and at least $2,500 for each violation of the 1988 law, passed after a newspaper obtained the video rental records of US Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, says MediaPost.
Now, “A class action lawsuit filed earlier this week targets Facebook and eight of the participants in Beacon, its ill-fated advertising product that shared information about third-party site activity with the social network,” says CNET News, continuing, “The set of 20 plaintiffs, mostly residents of Texas, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday.
“Named as defendants are Facebook, as well as current or former Beacon participants Blockbuster, Fandango (owned by Comcast), Overstock.com, STA Travel, Zappos, Hotwire (owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp), and GameFly.”
Facebook told CNET News the company hadn’t yet actually been served with the lawsuit, “and that its legal team consequently did not have a formal statement at the time”.
STA Travel, Gamefly, and Overstock all declined to comment, and none of the other defendants could be immediately reached,” says CNET, adding:
“Until we’re served, we’re not being sued, so we don’t have any comment,” says Overstock general counsel Mark Griffin.
Stay tuned.
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p2pnet - Blockbuster sued over Facebook Beacon, April 17, 2008
CNET News -Class action suit means Facebook’s Beacon just won’t go away, August 14, 2008
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August 15th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
huh this looks like a mpaa attack on facebook, with all the protests that facebook facilitates i gather that the AA’s want it shut down