A class action lawsuit filed against Facebook over its FriendFinder feature was dismissed yesterday by a California federal judge. In the case of Robyn Cohen, et al. v. Facebook, a group of the network’s members alleged that Facebook misappropriated users’ names and likenesses to promote its Friend Finder service, which suggests new Facebook friends to a user who chooses to upload his or her email contacts.
The Robyn Cohen case was actually dismissed previously on June 28, 2011, but the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. Thursday’s order dismissed this complaint. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs did not show any economic harm from Facebook’s alleged use of their names and likenesses.
Facebook had previously argued that there was no injury to the plaintiffs and that the network’s privacy policy stipulates that members’ names and photos are public information.
Facebook’s Litigation Counsel Sandeep Solanki issued this response to the ruling, “We appreciate the Court’s consideration, and we are pleased that all claims were dismissed with prejudice.”
This isn’t the first recent class action dismissal for Facebook. In September the Los Angeles Superior Court dismissed a class action lawsuit challenging the use of teenagers’ names and likenesses next to third-party advertisements on Facebook, allegedly without parental consent.
Of course, when one goes away, a few new ones are bound to pop up. Earlier in October, Facebook saw three new potential class-action lawsuits filed regarding reports that it tracks logged-out users.
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 845 million monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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