I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.
Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
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Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#12Can any lawyers summarize the actual lawsuit? What do these investors want exactly, more money? The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?
I have read the lawsuit, and it accuses Facebook of making false and misleading statements in their data privacy policy. It takes issue with this section of Facebook's privacy policy:
While you are allowing us to use the information we receive about you, you always own all of your information. Your trust is important to us, which is why we don't share information we receive about you with others unless we have:
• received your permission;
• given you notice, such as by telling you about it in this policy; or
• removed your name and any other personally identifying information from it.
The lawsuit claims Facebook violated bullet points 1 and 2, citing the CA news. The lawsuit uses this point to argue Facebook lied to their investors, did not provide more information on this in their SEC filings, and that investors suffering financial loss when the stock price fell after CA news.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What material fact did Facebook lie to their investors about?
From the article, > “defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent,” according to the complaint.
Users did consent when they approved CA's app. The only argument that can be made is that they didn't fully know what they were consenting to.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#14Can any lawyers summarize the actual lawsuit? What do these investors want exactly, more money? The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?
Facebook has lost almost $60 billion in value since the CA story broke. If you’re an investor, and this information wasn’t publicly available to you, you might feel aggrieved and want to seek compensation.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#15This happens any time a public company's stock goes down because of unexpected news. Investors sue for breach of fiduciary duty in an attempt to recover losses in the share price as a result of alleged negative, material information being withheld from the public by the company's management.
That being said - this should be particularly interesting given the topic. Securities fraud cases are usually boring, but this lawsuit may bring to light more details on exactly what FB didn't disclose.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article, > “defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent,” according to the complaint.
Users did consent when they approved CA's app. The only argument that can be made is that they didn't fully know what they were consenting to.
Users that used the ‘CA’ mydigitallife app did consent, but the millions of other profiles that they were able to scrape in definitely didn’t consent.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#17Can any lawyers summarize the actual lawsuit? What do these investors want exactly, more money? The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?
Facebook has lost almost $60 billion in value since the CA story broke. If you’re an investor, and this information wasn’t publicly available to you, you might feel aggrieved and want to seek compensation.
Should investors be able to sue a company anytime its stock goes down?
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#18I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.
Their work was upfront and they weren’t trying to buy info or hide behind an unrelated app. This feels scummy in comparison.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook has lost almost $60 billion in value since the CA story broke. If you’re an investor, and this information wasn’t publicly available to you, you might feel aggrieved and want to seek compensation.
Should investors be able to sue a company anytime its stock goes down?
They may sue when there is suspicion that the company didn’t disclose info that may affect their value.
Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting
#20I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.
I wonder... were one to check every story about this posted to HN, what percentage would contain a comment claiming that Obama did the same or worse?