Facebook Sued for illegally Scanning Users' Private Messages

[steven36]

Facebook is in trouble once again regarding its users' privacy.

 

 

Facebook is facing a class-action lawsuit in Northern California over allegations that the company systematically scans its users' private messages on the social network without their consent and makes the profit by sharing the data with advertisers and marketers.

According to the lawsuit filing, Facebook might have violated federal privacy laws by scanning users' private messages.
 

Facebook routinely scans the URLs within users' private messages for several purposes like anti-malware protection and industry-standard searches for child pornography, but it has been claimed that the company is also using this data for advertising and other user-targeting services.

 

The plaintiffs, Matthew Campbell, and Michael Hurley argue that the Facebook is scanning and collecting URLs-related data in a searchable form, violating both the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California Invasion of Privacy Act, reported the Verge.

Facebook argues that the company scans users' private messages in bulk, and maintains the URL records in an anonymized way, which is only used in aggregate form.

However, according to a technical analysis done on behalf of the plaintiffs, each URL-related message is stored in "Titan," a private message database that displays the date and time the message was sent, along with the user IDs of both the sender and the recipient.

 

However, it turns out that Facebook used this practice in past, but the company claimed to have stopped such practices a long time ago.

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"We agree with the court's finding that the alleged conduct did not result in any actual harm and that it would be inappropriate to allow plaintiffs to seek damages on a class-wide basis," a Facebook spokesperson told CNET.

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"The remaining claims relate to historical practices that are entirely lawful, and we look forward to resolving those claims on the merits."

However according to the plaintiffs, Facebook is still continuing to collect links from users' private messages.

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"Facebook's source code not only reveals that Facebook continues to acquire URL content from private messages, but that it also continues to make use of the content it acquires."

Meanwhile, you can check out the lawsuit here. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2012 and for now, the case is expected to proceed.

Plaintiffs have until June 8 to file an amended complaint, following a scheduled conference toward the end of the month.

 

The Source

[948bennett]

Hence...don't use social networks.

[Vjcobra]

OMG ... Talk about safe internet, it looks like it might be safer to surf through the Martian network after all.

[Holmes]

Thats why you dont have private conversations on a internet social media platform.  If you do have private conversations on a internet social media platform you only have yourself to blame.

[straycat19]

Only an idiot would have a private conversation on social media.  If you wanted to have private correspondence then you need to use an end to end encrypted email system like ProtonMail or GhostMail.  If you use social media at all you are being very 'social' since nothing is ever really hidden or deleted and can be viewed.   Anyone who uses any of the social media sites has no right to cry privacy invasion since they agree to all the monitoring in the Terms and Conditions that they agreed to when they initiated their account.  Maybe the lazy fucks ought to start reading, if they know how, since those users obviously can't spell worth a fuck anymore.

[steven36]

36 minutes ago, straycat19 said:

Only an idiot would have a private conversation on social media.  If you wanted to have private correspondence then you need to use an end to end encrypted email system like ProtonMail or GhostMail.  If you use social media at all you are being very 'social' since nothing is ever really hidden or deleted and can be viewed.   Anyone who uses any of the social media sites has no right to cry privacy invasion since they agree to all the monitoring in the Terms and Conditions that they agreed to when they initiated their account. 

You're opinion really dont mean much  there's 900 million people use Facebook Messenger now that's 3 times more people than is using windows 10

http://fortune.com/2016/04/07/facebook-messenger-900-million/

Only you can suggest they use something else but  in the end you can only protect yourself because only a few dont do what the masses do and will listen .