A group of Facebook users filed a civil lawsuit on Monday that alleges the social-networking site is violating California consumer privacy laws.
The lawsuit, which was filed in California's Orange County Superior Court on behalf of five users, seeks a jury trial, as well as damages and attorneys' fees. The five plaintiffs are described as two children younger than 13, a user of the original Facebook, a professional photographer, and an actress and model.
The 40-page complaint accuses the Palo Alto, California-based company of violating California privacy and online privacy laws by disseminating private information to third parties for commercial purposes.
"Plaintiffs and the general public desire and expect a level of privacy, which Facebook has failed to satisfy under its current policies, procedures, practices and technology," the complaint states.
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit other than to say, "We see no merit to this suit and we plan to fight it."
The plaintiffs' attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Facebook is no stranger to privacy controversy. In July, an investigation by Canada's privacy commissioner suggested Facebook is unconcerned with members' privacy and called on it to do more. Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart expressed concern that while it is easy for members to deactivate their accounts, it is less clear on how to delete them.
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Facebook could therefore retain member data from deactivated accounts for an indefinite period of time in violation of Canadian privacy law.
The social network went through a user backlash over the introduction of its News Feed in 2006, and a bigger one over the Beacon advertising programme.
More recently, a revision to Facebook's terms of use prompted consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist to highlight language that it said meant that Facebook claimed ownership of user profile data and photos.
Talkback
Why I don't like sites such as social networking, not because i have anything against people meeting an all that, but the fact that once accounts are setup the owners of the sites claim your identity then you haft to fight to prove its not there's.
Also as the article has already stated, why is it that people can't delete there accounts why do they put them in to state of sleep?,
Its the same on a great many of sites like this Ebay paypal its totally ironic considering the fact that all of this information is digitally based, and yet we the user cannot delete it at our own disgression.
Along with all this why is it there's nether a No option for T&C's? forcing people into a one way agreement to use the service is a poor substitute for weak argument to try to lay claim to some one else's identity or intellectual propriety.
Having rules for how to use a service provided by them is fair enough that is a common sense agreement between the two party's as to stop massive abuse from happening across there service that would affect us all.
But as for the service providers them selfs embodying everything that they can think of into that one body of text weather laying claim or denying responsibility, and only giving the recipient a one way answerable option is deception & entrapment.
Common sense rules for service usage is one thing, but all the other nonsense needs to go.