Facebook-Deprived Man Sues For $500K 259
broggyr writes "According to a story from MSNBC: 'For Mustafa Fteja, Facebook is more than just a hobby. It's the main way the 30-year-old Albanian native has stayed in touch with friends and family all over the world for three years, and when he was inexplicably cut off from it, he did what every other person in this country seems to do when they're mad enough: he sued. In seeking $500,000, Fteja is suing Facebook for disabling his account, in which he had about 340 friends and family and had spent "timeless hours creating content and relationships [Facebook] benefited from," the suit contends. He wants it back on, and he wants the company to pay for the damage of alienating him from his family and friends (about $1500 per friend/family).' Must be nice when you can use a free site and expect to get paid when they cut you off."
Strange Bias? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Free as in Beer" is becoming expensive these days! If we're going to agree we're now discussing Facebook as the metagame to adapt around, then we can't just give them a free pass to boot the user but keep all his nice crispy data they gathered for their ads.
Seems more reasonable than most (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the sum he's suing for is relatively small, compared to most of the crazy lawsuits I've seen - usually, they seek at least $10M, sometimes much, much more, all the way into the trillions. That itself says something about the case - it may be more about actual justice than profiteering.
PS: The guy is claiming a friendship is worth $1,500. Minimum statutory damages for "pirating" a single album is $7,500, or five friends. That alone says much about the US judicial system and this case.
Same here (Score:5, Interesting)
Same situation here. I've been cursed with a native Estonian forename "Anti" ( http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Anti ; it is not a rare name here, i know multiple Antis and even some celebrities are named Anti). Facebook is very strict about using real names and they are having automatic to ensure that... And my forename fails the check. A year ago, it took me about a month of e-mailing to register an account. I even had to scan and send my passport copy to prove I'm real.
Fast forward one year... Today morning, I'm unable to log in. Facebook tells my account has been suspended and I have to enter my real name to proceed. I enter my real name again and get an e-mail that my account is deleted now and they do not accept any further correspondence regarding that matter. Let's see if they answer to my e-mails or I'm banned from facebook forever just because my forename.
Re:With a name like that.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Fifty shiftless caftan-clad crofters eftsoon hefted bifteck loftily after their thrifty Lufthansa chieftain.
I suppose that next, he'll say that compound words and suffixes don't count. I don't care. That was fun! And he's an AC.