Attorneys representing a Mississippi woman in an invasion of privacy lawsuit against Facebook are seeking class-action status.
The suit, filed in federal court by Brooke Rutledge of Lafayette County, Miss., accuses Facebook of violating U.S. wiretap laws and breaching its service agreement by enabling cookies that tracked Internet browsing habits even after a user logs out of the 800 million-member social network. Last month a blogger claimed Facebook cookies were enabled even after users logged out; the claims were denied by Facebook.
It’s not clear how far the lawsuit, or a similar suit filed in Kansas earlier this month, will progress. But the resurrection of the user-tracking flap once again had users voicing privacy concerns in regards to Facebook.
“Well, this is creepy…” Kim Nucci tweeted Monday.
Facebook has greatly expanded its ability to track users across the Web through its now-ubiquitous Like buttons, which make it easy to share content on Facebook but also—at least in theory—give the social network the ability to see what Web pages Facebook users visit.
In what reads like a wry comment on this fact, Carlo Cabanilla tweeted, “Click the Like button to join this class-action lawsuit.”
Photo by althom2