Indeed the potential public relations damage is quite widespread. Thus far, Facebook has refused to directly answer the charges, but they may be forced to in court.
“Facebook remains silent on these accusations,” the Europe v. Facebook press release states. “Instead, Facebook simply ‘refutes’ all claims across the board, without explaining why. Facebook simply claims that it cannot be sued by its users.”
Among the accusations made by the lawsuit are: “invalid privacy policies; illegal collection and forwarding of user data; surveillance of users via ‘like buttons’ or ‘apps’; [and] the participation in the NSA ‘PRISM’ program.”
Facebook has also claimed that the lawsuit is invalid in some of the countries where plaintiffs reside.
“Facebook is of the opinion that it cannot be sued: a lawsuit of a larger number of users would be illegal in Ireland (the international headquarters of Facebook), because such a lawsuit would – according to Facebook – violate the ‘public order’ of Ireland,” the group said, according to ZDNet. “At the same time Facebook claims that the lawsuit is also inadmissible in Austria (the location of the plaintiff). Facebook claims that it cannot be sued anywhere effectively.”
The lawyer who is representing the 25,000 users characterized Facebook’s arguments as “really bizarre.”
“We have reviewed all objections from Facebook in great detail and came to the conclusion that they lack any substance,” said Dr. Proksch, the lawyer representing the 25,000 users. “It seems that they try to delay the procedure with partly really bizarre arguments.”
In the past, Schrems’ arguments led to a privacy audit by the data protection commissioner in Ireland.
That audit resulted in Facebook being forced to simplify their privacy policies, explain to users how they are utilizing personal data, flag when they use facial recognition and also limit the retention of ad-click data to two years, ZDnet reports.
Facebook told Techcrunch and ZDNet that they have nothing to add at this time.
Read more at http://endthelie.com/2015/01/26/european-court-approves-class-action-privacy-lawsuit-facebook/#T2B8EfYEsL1leUou.99