In favor of mass trial treatments against Facebook, for violating the privacy of its users, an American judge stood up. In particular, the District Judge of Oakland, California, Phyllis Hamilton, rejected the company's request to cancel the lawsuit, which concerns the scanning of the content of messages exchanged by users of its services, for advertising purposes.
Facebook claimed that scan of its users' messages is covered by an exception to the Federal Electronic Communications Data Protection Act, which permits service providers to watch in the normal course of their business.
However, the judge held that Facebook Inc "Does not provide an adequate explanation for how the contested act falls within the normal course of its proceedings."
According to the lawsuit, filed in 2013, Facebook scans the content of private messages with connections with websites (links), which are sent between users and then creates profiles with their preferences. This profile is used for projection targeted advertising to users.
The plaintiffs argue that scanning private messages violates California's federal and state law.
The court ruling states that Facebook stopped the practice in October 2012, but the company still does some analysis of the antivirus and spam protection messages.
The lawsuit was filed by the Facebook user, Matthew Campbell, who asks to be legalized as a user representative in the US.
