EPIC Amicus Filing Smith Facebook
EPIC Urges Court to Protect Facebook Users' Privacy, Disputes "Consent" in Medical Data Case
EPIC has filed a “friend of the court” brief with the Ninth Circuit in Smith v. Facebook concerning Facebook’s tracking of users when they visit healthcare websites, including cancer.net. The lower court dismissed the case, ruling that Facebook users consented to the disclosure of their personal data, based on Facebook's terms and conditions, even when the medical sites said specifically that data would not be disclosed. EPIC argued that, “consent is not an acid rinse that dissolves common sense.” Facebook previously settled charges with the FTC that it routinely changed its privacy settings without user consent. The settlement resulted from complaints brought by several consumer organizations, including EPIC.
September 26, 2017| Share:
