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Facebook Gets Slapped With Beacon Suit

Written on
August 14th 2008
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by Kathleen  |
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facebook_small.jpgADOTAS – Facebook, Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock (and others) are being hit with a class-action lawsuit in California that alleges the companies violated online privacy and fraud laws. It all goes back to the ill-fated Facebook program Beacon.

The infamous default program informed users’ friends about all of their e-commerce activity, leading to a series of chick-flickesque snafus and in certain cases, serious embarrassment. (Everyone remembers the story of that guy who bought his soon-to-be-fiance’s ring online only to have the price broadcast to his entire circle, and presumably his beloved, right?)

“By the time any user was notified that Facebook was (at a minimum), an observing party to the transaction, and that Facebook was asking for an approval to publicly broadcast identifying information regarding the event, personally identifying information had already been communicated to Facebook,” the suit states.

A month after its launch, Facebook re-jigged the program so that users had to choose to opt in to Beacon.



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