NorCal Man Sues Facebook Over Privacy Flaw

Company fixed "referrer header" issue after report

A Northern California man thinks he's going to be the one who successfully sues Facebook over its privacy policy.

David Gould, of South Lake Tahoe, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in San Jose Friday, claiming Facebook violated its privacy policy by divulging personal information to advertisers.

Gould is upset over that Facebook sent a unique number or "referrer header" to advertisers when a user clicked on an ad.The flaw gave advertisers the users' true identities, gender, friends, interests and other details on their profiles.

Information was sent to the advertiser showing what URL the user was on when the click occurred. By working backwards, the advertiser then could make a reasonable guess as to who made the click.

The flaw was discovered and reported by the Wall Street Journal at the end of May. Facebook fixed it the next day and posted a detailed explanation of the issue and what they did to change the way they deal with it.

Gould is seeking unspecified damages. He wants the judge to grant the class-action status, allowing other people to join as plaintiffs.

Facebook, based in Palo Alto, recently admitted it has made some mistakes with their privacy policy and just unrolled a new, simpler way to control who sees what in profiles. This particular security issue does not fall within that range of controls.

The 400 million-member strong Facebook is no stranger to lawsuits. Just Googling "Facebook privacy lawsuit" brings up a list of cases people have filed over the past couple years. So far, none of them have been successful. Many people who have become frustrated with the openness of the site have simply dropped out of the Facebook scene in rebellion.

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