Facebook Agrees to Settle Class Action for Scanning Social Media Messages | Practical Law

Facebook Agrees to Settle Class Action for Scanning Social Media Messages | Practical Law

Facebook has agreed to settle claims arising out of a class action alleging that the company violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) and California's Invasion of Privacy Act by utilizing data from private messages on its social media website without their senders' consent. Facebook agreed to make changes to its message processing practices and to provide more notification to users.

Facebook Agrees to Settle Class Action for Scanning Social Media Messages

Practical Law Legal Update w-006-7561 (Approx. 3 pages)

Facebook Agrees to Settle Class Action for Scanning Social Media Messages

by Practical Law Intellectual Property & Technology
Published on 03 Mar 2017 • USA (National/Federal)
Facebook has agreed to settle claims arising out of a class action alleging that the company violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) and California's Invasion of Privacy Act by utilizing data from private messages on its social media website without their senders' consent. Facebook agreed to make changes to its message processing practices and to provide more notification to users.
Facebook reached a nonmonetary settlement with a national class of Facebook users in Campbell v. Facebook, Inc. (310 F.R.D. 439 (N.D. Cal. 2017)). Facebook agreed as part of the settlement to change its practices on using data from private messages containing URLs.
The class action alleged that Facebook, in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California's Invasion of Privacy Act, scanned users' private Facebook messages for URLs and then used that data for:
  • Data mining.
  • User profiling.
  • Generating "likes" for web pages.
  • Targeted advertising.
Under the settlement terms, Facebook agreed to changes to Facebook's message processing practices including to:
  • Cease using data from URLs within private messages to:
    • generate recommendations to its users;
    • share user data with third parties; and
    • increase "like" counter numbers on third party websites.
  • Revise its data policy to:
    • inform users that it collects the "content and other information" that people provide when they "message or communicate with others"; and
    • further explain the ways in which Facebook may use that content.
Facebook also agreed that within 30 days of the effective date of the settlement, it will display the following additional language on its US website for Help Center materials concerning message: "We use tools to identify and store links shared in messages, including a count of the number of times links are shared."
US District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton must still approve the settlement and has scheduled a hearing on the motion for April 12.