A class-action lawsuit alleges that Facebook violated federal wiretap statutes by tracking people’s Internet browser history even when they are not logged in.
The use of cookies, a tracking script left in your history when you visit a site, isn’t uncommon in the web world, but from a legal standpoint, they aren’t supposed to track your history once you leave a website. But that’s what Facebook’s trackers appear to be doing.
The 17-page complaint, which also alleges breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespassing and invasion of privacy, claims that Facebook has been tracking, collecting, and storing users’ electronic communications, including — but not limited to — portions of Internet browsing history even when a user wasn’t logged into the social network.
The intention is to gather the information of other users who think their data may have been compromised and to present the case to the courts as a class action suit.
The suit claims that Facebook violated the terms of its own privacy policy, which states:
If you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account and visit a website with the like button or another social plugin, your browser sends us a more limited set of information. For example, because you’re not logged in to Facebook, we don’t receive your user ID.
This evidence comes mere weeks after Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic published evidence that Facebook like buttons track users browsing even when they aren’t logged in.
The cookies were later discovered on several T-Mobile cell phones, and they are thought to track your movements on other carriers as well.
Look for more on this in coming weeks. We’re used to cookies when browsing the web, but most users have yet to experience a cookie that tracked their mobile browsing habits.
Facebook has been the target of lawsuits before, so this news isn’t new all on its own, but it’s the first case that seems to have a legitimate standing since the privacy policy was created by the social network itself, and then violated, assuming this evidence proves true.
Source: allfacebook