Facebook is being sued in a class action case in Canada for privacy and for intentionally using personal information for commercial purposes. The lawyer involved has said that all Facebook users in Canada are part of the suit, which would mean that nearly half of Canada’s population could theoretically be involved.
The suit was filed on July 2 in Winnipeg and says that Facebook was “malicious, deliberate, and oppressive,” in how it handled the personal information of plaintiff Donald J. Woligroski and well, half of Canada, and seeks damages amounting to the total profits the company made by using the information (i.e. a lot).
Read more: http://www.techeye.net/internet/facebook-gets-more-grief-in-canada#ixzz0t7yxPweA .
Apparently, the suit states that:
“The defendant’s acts of deceit and omissions have breached the duty of care it owed to its users and have caused the plaintiffs to suffer injury, economic loss, and damages, which they continue to suffer. Facebook has demonstrated and taken a cavalier and arbitrary approach with respect to its legal obligations to the plaintiff and class members and the methods by which Facebook misrepresented to its profit, its privacy policies and how Facebook would share, use and disseminate the personal information of the plaintiff and class action members.”
Facebook replied to ComputerWorld acknowledging the suit saying, “we see no merit to this suit and we will fight it vigorously.”
Hopefully Facebook wakes up about Privacy and get it’s arse kicked
I honestly don’t get it…
If people are angry with Facebook, because they use “their information” for commercial purposes, why don’t they just delete their account.
This is just another lawsuit based on nothing to get rich fast.
Farid – It’s because Facebook misrepresented what they were going to do with the information entered into their databases willingly by Canadians. Would people have been as comfortable had they known that it was going to be handed out to anyone who pays for it, then it may have not been as fast to grow.
Deleting your account is a good first step, but it doesn’t change what Facebook has done with people’s personal profile information thus far.
I don’t understand. Millions of people use and love facebook, and unless you decide to post your phone number or address all anyone is getting is your name and email, which you all had no issue putting on here to be able to post your comments. All these lawsuits that are being filed are going to do is wreck a site that millions of us love and enjoy. If you are that bothered by it, go away and let us have our fun. If companies really want my name and email…….have at ‘er…..because this is what junk filters on our emails are for my friends.
I just signed up on Facebook on March 23.. I DECLINED to give them the password to my email, which they had requested. Then mysteriously this list of possible friends pops up and somehow most are in my email contacts. It seems likely that Facebook is forcing its way into your computer’s files whether you give permission or not. How else are these potential friends being generated. I smell potential illegal conduct by Facebook.
How is it that hacking into one’s contact list is not illegal? How is it that then taking that list and uploading it to Facebook’s databases without authorization is not stealing?