'Europe vs. Facebook' Group Files Suit against Facebook

On Friday, a group called "Europe vs. Facebook" launched a privacy campaign aimed at Facebook. The group also invites non-commercial Facebook users anywhere outside of the US and Canada to join in.

The group said its plan is to target unlawful acts that Facebook has engaged in:

- Data use policy, which is invalid under EU law

- The absence of effective consent to many types of data use

- Support of the NSA's 'PRISM' surveillance programmed

- Tracking of Internet users on external websites (e.g. through 'Like buttons')

- Monitoring and analysis of users through 'big data' systems

- Unlawful introduction of 'Graph Search'

- Unauthorized passing on of user data to external applications

The group said that its civil action has called 11,000 participants so far. A spokesperson for the group stated that most of the volunteers are from European and South American countries.  Most of the participants are from German-speaking countries, the Netherlands, Finland, and the UK.

The suit as brought to the attention of the Commercial Court for Vienna. The group's lawyer is Viennese lawyer and data privacy activist Max Schrems, who also heads the Europe vs. Facebook group.

"We are only claiming a small amount, as our primary objective is to ensure correct data protection. However, if many thousands of people participate we would reach an amount that will have a serious impact on Facebook'," said Schrems in a statement.

The suit entails that participant actively come forward and take part of the suit. They can join at any time. Europe vs. Facebook created a mobile-friendly website that users can use to join the action.

Participants would have to sign in with their Facebook accounts, verify and then add details like address and birth date.

The process is simple and does not require much effort.

"Facebook has now completely reversed its stance to the detriment of users of the service. Contrary to its prior representations, upon which users may have relied, the company will now routinely monitor the web browsing activities of its users and exploit that information for advertising purposes," said the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, an association of consumer NGO's in the US and Europe.