25,000 angry users: Facebook privacy class action lawsuit to be heard by European court

Hurray! The court approved our suit. I happen to be one of the 25,000 angry users. The substance of the suit is that Facebook has been engaging in illegal data gathering and information sharing with the US government (eg by participating in the PRISM program) and corporate interests. They have also violated EU privacy laws.

As you can see from the update which I posted in the comment section, Facebook has taken every opportunity to delay things.

For some reason, the class action suit is only open to non-US residents.

Originally posted on Satu Insan - Malaysia:

Max Schrems

An Austrian court has approved a class action of some 25,000 people around the world against Facebook. The social network is accused of breaching its users’ privacy. A preliminary hearing into the complaint has been set for April.

“The hearing on April 9 will consider the admissibility of the lawsuit,” Beatrix Engelmann of the Vienna regional court for criminal matters, told AFP.

The lawsuit was first filed last August by Max Schrems, an Austrian lawyer and founder of the group Europe versus Facebook. Schrems had already challenged the Irish Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) in 2013 by demanding an inquiry into the activities of US companies, including Facebook, to assess their involvement in the NSA spy scandal. The action resulted in a privacy audit by the data protection commissioner.