Federal district court dismisses privacy lawsuit against Facebook

A federal district court in San Jose, California, has dismissed a privacy lawsuit against Facebook on Friday, as US district judge Edward Davila ruled that the Menlo Park-based social media giant did not violate California's wiretapping laws and privacy regulations as it tracked the browsing habits of users who have deleted their Facebook accounts.

He also made an identical conclusion regarding any possible transgressions of federal privacy laws, noting that the plaintiffs failed to make a convincing case in claiming that Facebook violated their online privacy.

The lawsuit, which was filed in early 2012 had been partially dismissed in late 2015 by the same judge. It was rejected again in its somewhat revised state last week.

According to Judge Davaila, the lawsuit could be revised and refiled over any potential breach of contract on Facebook's part, though it remained to be seen whether the litigation ended up continuing, with both of the involved parties not commenting on the matter.

The social network was initially accused of violating the privacy of its users by keeping track of their online activities through browser cookies that remained active even after the deletion of their Facebook account.

Browsers with those cookies could then be tracked across all websites that featured Facebook's Like buttons, which, according to Davila was not a violation of any privacy or wiretapping law.

Facebook said in a written statement that it was " pleased with the court's ruling."

The judge's decision also barred the plaintiffs from amending and re-filing the privacy and wiretapping allegations but allowed them to pursue a renewed breach of contract claim.

As it sought class action status on behalf of other Facebook users, the now five and a half year old lawsuit characterised the tracking as "the single most pervasive and grave threat to data privacy today."