Lawsuit over Facebook feature
2008-04-18 11:30
San Francisco - Blockbuster Inc is being sued for its participation in a Facebook advertising program, which highlights the difficulties for social networking companies in using customer data to build advertising revenues.
Dallas resident Cathryn Elaine Harris filed a lawsuit on April 9 that alleges Blockbuster distributed her rental and sale records to third parties without appropriate consent.
The suit strikes out at Facebook's Beacon advertising program, which it launched last year. Beacon allowed Facebook to track users' activities on certain outside websites, including online purchases, and in certain cases published updates in online news feeds.
In the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Texas, Blockbuster violated the Federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing Harris's information with Facebook.
Beacon was met with protests by Facebook's users, and was quickly modified to let users select which of their friends get access to information.
"To this day, Facebook still receives personal identifiable information from participating websites with the Beacon javascript; whether the Facebook member has chosen to distribute the information or not," Harris said in her complaint. "To this day, Blockbuster online members remain unsuspecting victims."
A spokesperson for Blockbuster, Randy Hargrove, on Thursday denied the allegations.
He said Blockbuster's alliance with Facebook included "numerous levels of privacy protection", for users.
"We can't discuss the specifics but we intend to vigorously defend the company," the spokesperson said.
Facebook, which is privately held, didn't immediately return an e-mail seeking comment on Thursday.