American Appeals Court Allows Facebook Privacy Lawsuit to Proceed

Long-time Slashdot reader robbyyy writes: Facebook has been accused of violating its users rights by tracking users internet activity even after they have logged out of the platform. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said that users could now pursue them under various privacy and wiretapping laws.

Facebook is still dealing with the legal ramifications of the Cambridge Analytica scandal both in Australia and around the world.
"Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Facebook set an expectation that logged-out user data would not be collected, but then collected it anyway," the judge wrote. "In addition, the amount of data allegedly collected was significant...

"In light of the privacy interests and Facebook's allegedly surreptitious and unseen data collection, Plaintiffs have adequately alleged a reasonable expectation of privacy."

Beginning of the end for Facebook?

[Rick Schumann]

We can but hope.
Maybe all other so-called 'social media' will follow, then.

Re:

[Randj Herdle]

Time for all the social media providers to update their EULAs to include the clause "We may collect any and all data about you that interests us, and use it for any purpose we choose." Do you think that would significantly reduce the number of participants? Even if the clause was in 24 point type at the beginning of the agreement?

Re:Beginning of the end for Facebook?

[Rick Schumann]

People are always going to be stupid. But if this lawsuit is successful, then a legal precedent will be set, setting the stage for similar lawsuits. If enough people jump on the litigation bandwagon, and they likely will in the form of both individual and class-action lawsuits, not only will it make Facebook less profitable, it'll draw attention to all of it in the media, and that'll be read by more and more people who, while they've been dumb for so long, will with any luck at all start to realize exactly how they've been duped by Facebook, and perhaps they'll start leaving it behind. At the very least it'll force Facebook to change the way it does things, perhaps even drawing the attention of Congress, who will have to take citizens' privacy seriously, reigning in Facebook legally-speaking. Facebook being the 900 pound gorilla of 'social media', other so-called 'social media' platforms will have to follow suit. So in the end we'll either have 'social media' that doesn't ass-rape everyone's privacy, or 'social media' will go the way of the dinosaur, as everyone discovers exactly how much it's been abusing and violating them.
At the VERY LEAST, if this one lawsuit is successful, Facebook will have to stop collecting data on people who aren't even on Facebook itself. That'll hurt it profitability severely. I hope it's enough to kill it.

Re:

[Kitkoan]

Wouldn't help Facebook, even if they somehow got the EULA to cover past issues, as Facebook even tracks non users, aka people who never agreed to the EULA

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-admits-tracking-users-and-non-users-off-site [theguardian.com]

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Twitter is what really causes the civil unrest.

I can look forward

[bobstreo]

to the class action lawsuit which will either give me 200 Bookface credits, or $3.25.

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

Mod me down for pointing to a comment I made that was modded up? Really?

Re:

[lactose99]

Every American gets one free month of Facebook ad buys.

Will go nowhere

[nospam007]

The judge knows, he'd never get any Likes anymore in the future, if he condemns them.

CA was tiny compared to Obama campaign

[landofcleve]

"Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina Talks Big Data at the Milken Institute's 2013 Global Conference" In this series of clips from our discussion about Big Data at the 2013 Global Conference, Jim Messina discusses how the Obama campaign effectively used large volumes of data to identify voters. This ultimately lead to a more effective deployment of resources. The discussion provides fascinating insights into the way large data sets can be accumulated and used to change the outcome of an election. It was