Judge Dismisses Facebook Lawsuit Over Tracking Logged Out Users

[link to dailycaller.com]


A U.S. judge reportedly threw away a legal complaint Friday alleging Facebook tracks users after they log out of their accounts.

Plaintiffs in the case assert that Facebook is violating both California and federal privacy laws by stockpiling cookies — data sent back and forth between an internet server and a web browsing platform. They argue that Facebook wrongfully uses the cookies (or data) from other websites for their own purposes, presumably marketing and targeted advertisements, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila of San Jose, Calif., said the plaintiffs failed to make their case, specifically that they suffered any “realistic” economic harm or that their privacy was significantly infringed upon. The judge argued, for example, that users could have taken steps to keep their browsing histories more private by manually disallowing interception of cookies.