Facebook has been sued for invasion of privacy. The plaintiffs' allegations "stem[] from the Cambridge Analytica scandal," and their alleged class action "is about Facebook's practice of sharing its users' personal information with third parties." In re: Facebook, Inc., Consumer Privacy User Profile Litig., ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, MDL No. 2843, No. 18-md-02843-VC, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1 (N.D. Cal. September 9, 2019) (Chhabria, USDJ).
In particular, the plaintiffs suing Facebook over the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal and asserting claims over Facebook's reported business model of selling its customers' personal information to third parties, allege four groups of actionable conduct:
The plaintiffs allege that Facebook violated their privacy rights (and other rights) because: (i) they engaged in sensitive communications that included photographs, videos they made, videos they watched, Facebook posts, likes, and private one-on-one messages; (ii) they intended to share these communications only with a particular person or a group of people; (iii) Facebook made those communications widely available to third parties in a variety of ways; and (iv) as a result, third parties were able to develop detailed dossiers on the plaintiffs including information about their locations, their religious and political preferences, their video-watching habits, and other sensitive matters.
In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *9.
In the face of these allegations, Facebook filed a motion to dismiss based on three grounds. We discuss the first of those grounds here. "First, Facebook argues that people have no legitimate privacy interest in any information they make available to their friends on social media." In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.
Facebook's first argument is simply that they cannot be sued here. Facebook filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit -- a lawsuit, recall, that was a result of the Cambridge Analytica revelations about Facebook's reported business practices of selling sensitive information of their customers -- by saying that they, Facebook, simply cannot be sued for what they allegedly did.
The Court's concise rejection of this first Facebook argument is already well-known, that "Facebook's argument could not be more wrong."
The Court explained why at the outset of its opinion, in a concise and compelling summary followed by the written opinion in this ruling:
When you share sensitive information with a limited audience (especially when you’ve made clear that you intend your audience to be limited), you retain privacy rights and can sue someone for violating them.
In re Facebook Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, 2019 WL 4261048, at *1.
Facebook's second argument that it should not be sued in this case is that the plaintiffs did not allege any "concrete" and "particularized" injury, so that even if the plaintiffs suffered an injury otherwise recognized by the law, still they could not sue here in this federal court case because they arguably lacked standing to sue Facebook. In the next article, we will address that argument and the Court's disposition of it.
Please Read The Disclaimer. ©2019 Dennis J. Wall. All Rights Reserved.
Comments