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Blockbuster Sued for Facebook's Beacon Advertising Program

by Tim Stevens on April 19, 2008 at 08:02 AM



Last year Facebook put an embarrassing cap on an otherwise stellar year -- one in which it got $240 million in funding from Microsoft -- by tripping and falling on its face with the whole Beacon advertising fiasco. Facebook is still smarting, and now Blockbuster is, too, for its part, on the receiving end of a lawsuit for exposing personal information through the service.

In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a new advertising program enabling advertisers to post content directly to users' feeds. One of those advertisers was Blockbuster, which automatically posted feeds about what movies or games subscribers were renting. Anyone who clicked "Remember Me" when signing in, and who happened to have a Blockbuster account, was automatically enrolled in this program, which resulted in some potentially embarrassing exposures of their rental history.

Now, Texan Cathryn Elaine Harris is suing the company for exchanging and disclosing that information without her explicit permission. Facebook did offer an opt-out option to users at the peak of the negative publicity last year, but since there was never an opt-in, it sure seems as though Harris has a solid case. We'll be watching this one closely. [Source: Newsvine]

Tags: Beacon, Blockbuster, Facebook, Privacy

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