Facebook faces suit over private messages

[IDemo]

Source: CNN

Two Facebook users are taking the company to court over claims it mines private messages for data that is then sold to third parties.

The lawsuit filed earlier this week alleges that Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) scans messages between users labeled "private" for links and other information that can be sold to advertisers, marketers and data aggregators.

According to the suit, this is done without proper disclosure or the consent of users.

The suit was filed by Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley in a U.S. district court in Northern California. They want the suit to be made a class action, and suggest that as many as 166 million Facebook users in the U.S. would be eligible to join.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/03/technology/facebook-privacy-lawsuit/

[Javaman]

1. "private" no longer exists in our society. nt

[1StrongBlackMan]

2. But we really had to obsess about the NSA ...

while ignoring the corporate hoover ... the former has an real and legitimate purpose - "keep us safe", though perhaps flawed in execution, ; the latter, however, is unabashedly for pure profit, and therefore okay.

[ZombieHorde]

3. "FB" just wants to make money.

The "US government" kills people everyday, locks people in cages everyday, and tortures people. Not all of us believe this is only done to keep us safe.

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. The US government ...

has the capacity to kill people, locks people in cages, and tortures people ... very little of which (if any) has been connected to data collection.

FB (and other corporations) regularly sells its data to other corporations that HAVE AND CONTINUE TO negatively affect our ability to secure food, shelter and jobs.

One is a it COULD happen; the other is a IS happening. Guess which one I am more concerned with?

[ZombieHorde]

7. You don't believe the people who identify with the US government,

such as soldiers and police, kill people and lock them in cages every single day? You don't believe the US government has recently tortured people?

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. No ...

I do not believe that they do these things on the basis of data mining ... this IS what we are/I am talking about.

[ZombieHorde]

9. If not acts of violence, what else are they going to do with it?

Add more names to the No Fly list? That in itself is fucked up.

[1StrongBlackMan]

10. More "Ifs" ...

fact is, there have been no (few) instances of the violence that you imagine will surely come ... But there ARE real life examples of the data shared by corporations, being the real life basis for denying real life housing and real life jobs to real life people.

[ZombieHorde]

13. I am very confused by your post.

We must be talking about very different things if you are seeing the violence I am talking about. It's on the news all the time.

[1StrongBlackMan]

14. Then spell it out ...

what violence are you seeing on the TV machine where the US government is using mined data against the American people?

[ZombieHorde]

15. Eurkeka! I think I figured out our miscommunication.

Yes, I agree that the mined data is not being directly used to harm US folk on a regular basis at this point in time, or if it is, we don't know about it.

However, this is not my immediate concern.

The immediate concern is the War on Terror which is harming human folk on a regular basis. People are being subjected to rendition without any sort of trial (trials are very flawed, but better than no trial, in my opinion), and US folk have been tortured under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration. The NSA data mining adds to this violent aspect of the US Government. People who identify as US citizens may not being subjected to this violence on a regular basis, but people in general are.

This is my main concern. Many Americans seem to be more concerned about their perceived loss of their Constitutional rights, but that is a different argument, and I will let those people argue it.

[1StrongBlackMan]

16. Okay ...

therein lies our disconnect.

[freshwest]

12. Everyone has been brainwashed. They don't understand what contracting govt. work is, either. n/t

[bpollen]

11. Privacy exists...

Just not on phones, or electronic communications. Or, probably, snail-mail.

If I pass a letter to you via dead-drop, wiretaps cannot intercept it.

If they want to use hi-tech devices to read my keystrokes from afar, it won't work if I am using a typewriter.

If we truly had no privacy, Ariel Castro and Bernie Madoff would have been caught much earlier.


That being said, privacy IS under constant assault.

[father founding]

4. Facebook the Corporation

Suprise!, Surprise!, Facebook is not a social media site, IT IS a Corporation that was set up to mine data on the American people all the time. Does anyone still believe Zuckerface created Facebook ?

[1StrongBlackMan]

6. Is this ...

Does anyone still believe Zuckerface created Facebook ?

the latest CT? Zuckerberg ... a deep, deep, deep covered NSA operative?