Two Facebook users are suing the social network for allegedly intercepting the “content of the users’ communications” to “mine user data and profit from those data by sharing them with third parties—namely, advertisers, marketers and other data aggregators,” Ars Technica reports. In their December 30 class-action, the plaintiffs allege “Facebook’s use of the word ‘private’ in relation to its messaging system is misleading, given the way the company treats the info contained within those messages,” the report states. Facebook has denied the allegations, calling them “without merit.” The class-action is seeking $100 for each day of violation or $10,000 per class member and “statutory damages of either $5,000 per class member or three times the amount of actual damages, whichever is greater,” the report states.
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