Topic: 17000 sign up to lawsuit against Facebook for supporting NSA spying (Read 1716 times)

All the politicians are crooks and serve the same circles. Elections are only an illusion of choice for keeping the dumb slaves in their place.

This is not acceptable but it is not an issue with facebook, it is an issue with the government. This was something that facebook has been forced to do. A much better solution would be to elect politicians that would put an end to this kind of requests for information.

Facebook users who use the service already sign the privacy agreement. I don't see how the lawsuit can work for something you already agree on and "give up".

Someone can logout of facebook and clear their cookies. This would make it so they would have no real way of tracking you since facebook uses your account to track you.

Those sites should also stop using Facebook.  Therefore, we should stop using sites which support Facebook supporting the NSA.  Enough people do this and I guarantee you the web will change in the way you desire.  Anyway, I don't think asking government is a good idea, considering they're the major source of the problem to begin with; if anything they'll pretend to solve the problem to trick you into believing it's safe, when the problem persists in a different form.

There's this tool which stops the like buttons from tracking you: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/?src=search

Also, IIRC, Facebook isn't the only one who tracks you through those buttons; Google is the only other culprit that comes to mind, though I believe there's more.  That tool should block them, though.  While I agree that it's no fun to have to use these extra precautions to protect oneself on the web, we must remember that the web is this way out of our will; whatever people consent to will continue, and consenting to the use of sites which watch what we do is resolved only by refusing revenue to said sites.

The solution is not that easy. Even if you do not use facebook, facebook keeps track of you using the 'like' buttons on other sites. There are many of those 'like' or 'share' buttons all over the web. You have to block the entire domains they own to prevent them spying on you.
I think this is illegal actually: as you didn't register or accept facebook terms of service they also track you.

Just stop using Facebook.

support this lawsuit! What is my concern is no matter how many people sign up to lawsuit, the important thing is that do you have solid evidence to  against facebook? what is the chance of winning such case?

Indeed, targeted advertising is different than all data you ever put in facebook. People always have some trust with a company - for example, if you order a pizza you don't expect it will be poisoned. In the same way, if you use a social network - you don't expect all of  your data to be copied. Sadly, the government doesn't protect the customers and instead abuses.

I think that's the problem, seems like more and more people couldn't care less about their online privacy. It's got to the point now that people want to share all their private information on social media without any consideration how that data will be used in the future by say advertisers, future employers, government agencies etc.

'Targeted' advertising is the USP of internet companies like facebook and google. But sharing of information, especially of users all over the world, with the US government? I am not sure whether that is acceptable.

Facebook is always going to track you to some extent. This is just how FB is setup. Even if they were not to do it for advertising purposes, they would do it to be able to do it via whatever you post on your wall, status, other people's wall, ect.

we must keep the independence and freedom of the digital world, i do not agreed to allow FB to track my digital wen i signed up

This will be an epic failure. They agreed to allow FB to track their digital life when they signed up.

Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfnKmPQdapw

EDIT

This one is funny as hell, lol:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmre4SeWunk

Good luck with conveying the dangers of big brother to the average voter, and why would government abandon such a resource? I secretly hope to be surprised one day, but I expect I'll be so cynical maybe I won't even see a change for the better if it slapped me!

There should be lawsuits outside the US as well.
Maybe in Europe...

I doubt it will be brushed aside, but I don't think the plaintiffs will win. This looks like a way for class-action trial lawyers attempting to bully their way to get a settlement from facebook so they can get paid.

This was said above, but it should be said again that the best way to stop the spying is at the polls.

Many people have been lured onto facebook wih promises of friend or family only exposure amongst other things.

It is clear that this is NOT what facebook is for. Clearly trust has been manipulated and/or broken by facebook.

Whether people see the need or advantage of it or not there are obvious and admitted psychological tests being undertaken without consent.

Sadly the law suit won't have much ground to stand on and will just be brushed aside.

Fundamental problem is the crook we elected in place.

Solution would be vote out every politician that support NSA, CIA and FBI.

I don't think they really have a case. Facebook was merely complying with the court orders they received. In many cases the NSA was able to access data without Facebook even knowing about it.

I am very much against the NSA spying (especially on americans and people in the US), however I don't think this is the right way to stop it. I think a better solution would be to vote for politicians who are for smaller government.

More than 17,000 Facebook members have joined a class action lawsuit accusing the social network of violating data protection law and supporting spying by America's National Security Agency.

The suit was launched on 1 August by a 26-year-old Austrian law student, Max Schrems, who filed his claim to be heard in his home country. He called for 1 billion Facebook users to join his case.

By Monday, 5,000 Facebook members had signed up for the action via a specially created app that can be accessed from desktop computers and mobile devices, handing over details of their Facebook memberships, their addresses and scans of identity documents. By Tuesday, more than three times that number were on board.

Schrems, who described the response to his appeal as "giant", told the Reuters: "The emails and feedback have been really positive and what is interesting is that many people say finally someone is doing something in this direction."

The case is being brought against Facebook Ireland, which is based in Dublin and runs the network's activities outside of America.

"Our aim is to make Facebook finally operate lawfully in the area of data protection," said Schrems. "We love to complain constantly about data protection problems in Europe, now it's also time for us to enforce our fundamental rights. Within the framework of this class action individuals can also make a contribution to this effort."

The world's biggest social network has 1.32 billion users, and its shares are trading at a record high, valuing the company at almost $200bn.

But Schrems claims Facebook Ireland has committed unlawful acts, including "support of the NSA's 'PRISM' surveillance programme", tracking Facebook users on external websites, for example through "like" buttons, passing user data to external applications without authorisation, and not securing effective consent for many types of data use.

The suit mentions in particular Graph Search, a Facebook feature which produces lists of named members in response to queries such as "Friends who live in San Francisco", or even "Facebook employees who live in London".

The claim for damages has been set at a "token" €500 member. The suit is being financed entirely by Roland Prozessfinanz, a specialist litigation funding company, which will take 20% of any damages awarded. The rest of the damages will be handed back to the claimants, unless the balance is under €5, in which case it will be donated to charity.

"Because of our long history as a litigation funding company we are used to levelling the playing field in the fight between David and Goliath. In this case it is particularly necessary," said Arndt Eversberg, chief executive of Roland.

Under Austrian law, a group of people may assign their claims to one litigant, in this case Schrems, thus creating a class action. But those who hand over their claim to Schrems will not be liable for any costs.

"We are only claiming a small amount, as our primary objective is to ensure correct data protection," said Schrems. "However, if many thousands of people participate we would reach an amount that will have a serious impact on Facebook."

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/05/sign-up-austrian-student-facebook-class-action-data-violations