Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Media 6 of Facebook's All-Time Biggest Privacy Scandals
Posted by Virginia K. Smith on Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 1:01 PM
Page 7 of 7
2007 - Beacon
In 2007, Facebook introduced "Beacon," a program that, among other things, announced online purchases from sites like Blockbuster and Overstock in users' feeds. One man, for instance, bought jewelry online for his wife, who was then notified of the purchase (as were all of his other Facebook friends). That couple ended up as part of a class-action lawsuit against the site for violating federal privacy laws. The settlement was only finalized this past September, and among other things, required Facebook to give more than $6 million to a so-called "Digital Trust Fund" for the study of online privacy. Which surely means none of these problems will ever come up again, right?
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.
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