Facebook Lawsuit

Facebook Lawsuit

Facebook Lawsuit, In the last two years we've seen a number of music and movie services integrate with Facebook—which lets your Facebook friends see what you stream—but several companies are now facing user and legal backlash.This week Pandora users in Michigan filed a class-action lawsuit against the oldest music discovery service, which announced Facebook integration in April 2010, for publicizing their stations and listening habits online as well as sharing such information on Facebook without their consent.
The plaintiffs, led by attorney Peter Deacon, claim Pandora is violating Michigan's Video Rental Privacy Act by publishing this information for anyone online to see. This 1988 law states that merchants selling or renting out music, books, and videos, cannot disclose these purchases to anyone other than the consumer; it's similar to a federal law that Netflix is trying to change.

Furthermore, plaintiffs claim Pandora integrated their accounts with Facebook without telling them, violating Michigan's Consumer Act. Pandora announced the Facebook integration in April 2010 at Facebook's F8 developers' conference.

The plaintiffs are asking for $5,000 each in relief for the first violation, and another $5,000 for those whose accounts were merged with Facebook.

The Pandora lawsuit was filed on September 20 of this year, coincidentally just as Facebook was announcing similar integration deals with rival music services like Spotify, , Rdio, and Slacker. Spotify, however, this week added a "private listening" mode that lets users keep their listening habits private from Facebook friends. Facebook Lawsuit,

This week Netflix urged users to appeal to Congress to modernize a 1988 federal law preventing it from sharing viewer habits with Facebook users. This week at F8, Netflix announced Facebook integration in Canada and Latin America only.

Earlier this month Pandora launched a major redesign, eliminating the listening caps that the site had previously installed, and adding a new social music feed. Facebook Lawsuit ,

Source: pcmag