Ninth Circuit Cool to Privacy Claims Against Facebook, Zynga
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Two privacy class actions with the potential for millions in statutory damages against Facebook and Zynga sounded destined to fail Friday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
But Facebook may not be completely off the hook, because a three-judge panel sounded willing to entertain breach-of-contract and other state law claims against the social network for revealing user IDs to third parties.
Facebook attorney Aaron Panner of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel argued that disclosure of mere ID numbers didn’t cause any appreciable damage under California law, but Judge Richard Tallman didn’t sound convinced.
“We’re here on basically a pleadings appeal,” he said, “so we don’t have any discovery about how valuable is this information.” The Ninth Circuit may have to certify the state law issues to the California Supreme Court, he added.
How much those claims would be worth is unclear, though plaintiff attorney Kassra Nassiri argued the user IDs lead to “a goldmine of information” on which Facebook’s entire business model is predicated.
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