Facebook Privacy Lawsuit Severely Weakened, but Can Go Forward

While there's been plenty of talk and debate about online privacy, there haven't really been too many legal repercussions. And perhaps for good reason, a lawsuit [PDF] brought against Facebook accusing it of privacy violations, wiretapping and even breach of contract, was severely weakened as the judge failed to recognize that any actual damage has occurred.

However, the judge will allow the lawsuit to go forward and dismissed Facebook's claim that it be thrown out altogether.

Two individuals from California sued Facebook for revealing their usernames to advertisers during a period of two months last year.

They sued the company under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Stored Communications Act, unfair competition, fraud, breach of contract and other claims, eight in total.

Now, the judge presiding the case dismissed all of the eight claims, but enabled the two plaintiffs to file some of the claims again providing they can demonstrate real damages.

During February 2010 and March 2010, advertisers got to see the usernames of Facebook users that clicked on ads on the site. Facebook moved to block this soon after it was discovered, but it was enough for some to feel they were "injured" by the event.

The judge didn't quite see how many of the charges brought against the site could stand up and dismissed all of them. Some were quite far fetching, like unfair competition or break of wiretapping laws.

The judge said that since the plaintiffs did not show how the breach affected them financially, for it to be unfair competition, the claim wasn't valid.

On some of the claims, the judge did allow the two plaintiffs to file again, but overall he didn't seem too impressed with the lawsuit. While he did throughout all eight claims, he also denied Facebook motion to dismiss the lawsuit.