By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service August 13, 2008 07:20 PM ET
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A class-action suit filed in California charges Facebook and a handful of other companies, including Blockbuster, Fandango and Overstock, with violating online privacy and computer fraud laws related to Facebook's controversial Beacon system.
Beacon is a program designed by Facebook that shares information about Facebook users' Internet activities with friends. When a Facebook user who has Beacon turned on buys an item on Overstock.com, for example, a message appears on their Facebook page about the purchase, so that all the user's friends can see the message.
But Beacon came under fire from the start from privacy advocates, some of whom wondered how much information Facebook was gathering about how many Internet users.
The suit also names as defendants Hotwire, STA Travel, Zappos.com and Gamefly, as well as other unnamed companies that were
initially involved in the Beacon program but not named by Facebook.
Earlier this year, a woman in Texas sought class-action status for a suit against Blockbuster for its participation in Beacon.
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