Jefferson County woman sues Facebook over privacy

Birmingham, Al.
A Jefferson County woman has sued Facebook, claiming the online social network collected private information about her, including her Internet browsing history, and may have provided the information to a third party.
Alexandria Parrish filed the lawsuit Friday against the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company in U.S. District Court in Birmingham.
"Plaintiff (Parrish) did not give consent or otherwise authorize Facebook to intercept, track, collect and store her wire or electronic communications, including but not limited to her Internet browsing history when not logged-in to Facebook," the lawsuit states.
Facebook placed digital data-collection codes called cookies on Parrish's computers which tracked her activity while logged-off of Facebook, the lawsuit states. Facebook benefited through either sales of information about Facebook users to third parties or by having greater knowledge of its own users' behavior without their consent, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed on Parrish's behalf by attorney Peter S. Mackey, of Mobile, is one of a number filed across the country in recent months against Facebook that make privacy claims.
Mackey declined comment Monday, saying he would let the lawsuit speak for itself. Facebook officials did not respond to questions posed in emails on Monday.
A number of the lawsuits filed against Facebook seek to be classified as class action lawsuits to represent all users who have had their personal information collected.
"I think that any time Facebook changes any of its settings, you see a rash of lawsuits," said Woodrow Hartzog, an assistant professor at the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University who specializes in privacy and Internet law. "It hasn't been a real successful strategy."
The Wire Tap Act, which the Parrish lawsuit and other suits claim Facebook violated, was last amended with the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 and was aimed more at traditional wiretapping, Hartzog said.
Electronic cookies weren't even in use when the law was last amended, Hartzog said. "The laws we have on the books don't really address this kind of behavior (cookies)."
Hartzog said that Facebook users consent to the terms of service, including privacy agreements, when creating a Facebook account. But the agreements "are written with a very broad brush and are very long and confusing," he said.
As a result, users are often surprised by what they have agreed to, Hartzog said.
"Virtually nobody reads the privacy agreements," Hartzog said. "It would take a brave soul to get through one of those agreements."
Use of cookies to collect broad user information to target advertisements has been around for more than a decade. "This is how the (free) websites make money," Hartzog said.
Parrish's lawsuit claims that Facebook violated its own privacy policy and the promises it made to users, both of which are quoted in the lawsuit.