Facebook User Sues Over Location Tracking

Facebook has a never-ending appetite for user data to provide to advertisers, and that means tracking your behavior and habits—both online and off. Indeed, it’s no secret Facebook is interested in where and how you spend your time IRL. But at least one user is fed up with this sort of tracking. So fed up, in fact, he filed a class-action lawsuit against the social media giant late last week for allegedly storing user location data even after a user attempts to stop it.

The complaint, filed by a Facebook user named Brett Heeger, alleges that Facebook stores records of users’ “estimated locations” based off their IP addresses and Wi-Fi connections. He also says that he tried to prevent this in his privacy settings, but that he was unable to stop the company’s tracking. And the only way for a user to learn about this location tracking, Heeger says, is if that user downloads their data from the platform and pours over “multiple obscure folders.”

“Facebook’s conduct is contrary to users’ reasonable expectations of privacy,” Heeger said in his complaint. “The average consumer understands that turning Location History off has a purpose and an effect: to limit Facebook from tracking, logging, and storing location information.”

For its part, Facebook said the suit is without merit and that it will defend itself. But while it’s unclear on if this case will actually go anywhere, it’s never a bad thing for Facebook to have to answer for its privacy practices.