Student Group Plans to Sue Facebook in Ireland
Facebook privacycampaign group europe-v-facebook plans to sue the social networkin Ireland, where the company has its internationalheadquarters, it said on Tuesday.
The Austrian student group has been campaigning for betterdata protection by Facebook for over a year and has won someconcessions, notably pushing the world's biggest social networkto switch off its facial recognition feature in Europe.
But the group said on Tuesday the changes did not go farenough and it was disappointed with the response of the IrishData Protection Commissioner, which had carried out aninvestigation after europe-v-facebook filed numerous complaints.
"The Irish authority is miles away from other European dataprotection authorities in its understanding of the law, andfailed to investigate many things. Facebook also gave theauthority the runaround," it said in a statement.
"We are hoping for a legally compliant solution from theIrish data protection authority. Unfortunately, that is highlydoubtful at the moment. Therefore we are also preparingourselves for a lawsuit in Ireland."
Facebook is also facing a class-action lawsuit in the UnitedStates, where it is charged with violating privacy rights bypublicising users' "likes" without giving them a way to opt out.
A U.S. judge late on Monday gave his preliminary approval toa second attempt to settle the case by paying users up to $10each out of a settlement fund of $20 million.