Declan McCullagh reports:
The state of Virginia has backed away from its attempts to force Facebook to divulge the complete contents of a user’s account to settle a dispute over workers’ compensation, narrowly avoiding what promised to be a high-profile privacy battle in federal court.
On Monday, the Virginia’s Workers Compensation Commission said it was no longer going to levy a $200-a-day fine on the social-networking site for refusing to comply with a subpoena from an airline that previously employed a flight attendant named Shana Hensley.
Facebook had objected to the June 4 subpoena from Colgan Air–the Manassas, Va.-based company that operates under the names United Express, US Airways Express, and Continental Connection–on privacy grounds. It said federal law prohibits divulging user data in response to a subpoena, and promised to “further litigate this issue by seeking, among other things, an injunction from the federal courts.”
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