Facebook Not Liable for Sharing Your Information with Advertisers, Court Rules

A federal judge dismissed a wiretap and computer fraud class action lawsuit filed against Facebook for allegedly leaking Facebook users’ personal information to advertisers. The federal lawsuit accused Facebook of sharing two California men’s real names and other sensitive information with advertisers in violation of the social network’s own privacy policy and various federal and state laws.

The United States District Court in San Jose California dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs did not allege they suffered specific injuries, and the alleged information leak did not run afoul of wiretap and computer fraud statutes:

“[I]n regard to damages, plaintiffs allege only that as a result of the alleged breach of contract, plaintiffs ‘suffered injury. . . [h]owever, plaintiffs fail to allege any actual damages in their complaint. Thus, under California law plaintiffs fail to state a claim for breach of contract.”

In an eighteen page Order, Judge Ware granted Facebook’s motion to dismiss the complaint in its entirety, although he granted leave to amend on certain counts while expressing skepticism about the overall merits of the case.