A lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle this week is the latest to accuse Facebook of tracking its users’ online activity even when they’re logged out of the social network — a practice that Facebook previously described as inadvertent and said it quickly fixed in September after an independent developer brought the problem to its attention.
The proposed class-action suit, filed by lawyers for Matthew J. Vickery in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges that Facebook violated the federal wiretap act through its use of tracking cookies as he browsed the web.
“Leading up to September 23, 2011, Facebook tracked, collected and stored its users’ wire and electronic communications, including but not limited to portions of their Internet browsing history even when the users were not logged-in to Facebook.com,” the suit reads. (Full text: PDF, 15 pages)
The case was first reported by KOMO-TV in Seattle.
Vickery’s complaint is similar to other lawsuits filed around the country. Facebook has described those suits as without merit and said it will fight them “vigorously.” We’ve asked the company for comment on this latest suit, as well.
