Ross Todd reports:
Facebook Inc. may have put to rest a privacy suit seeking billions of dollars in damages for the company’s alleged snooping on users’ browsing habits.
Plaintiffs in the multidistrict litigation claimed that Facebook employed cookies that could track and store users’ web surfing even after they logged out of the social networking site. Brought under state and federal privacy laws that carry steep statutory penalties per violation, the suit could have exposed Facebook to more than $15 billion in potential damages and sought an injunction barring Facebook from installing such cookies.
On Friday U.S. District Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California granted a request by Facebook’s lawyers at Cooley to dismiss the three-year-old suit. Davila found plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue some claims and failed to show that Facebook had violated the decades-old privacy laws on those that remained. Davila gave plaintiffs until Nov. 30 to amend their complaint.
Read more on The Recorder. The case is IN RE: FACEBOOK, INC. INTERNET TRACKING LITIGATION.