Zynga faces class-action lawsuit for recent Facebook privacy breach

Remember that little problem the Wall Street Journal stumbled upon in several of Zynga's top ranking Facebook games like FarmVille? Well, the social gaming giant could very well pay the price... to over 200 million players as the company faces a class-action lawsuit brought by Nancy Graf of St. Paul, Minn., according to an Edelson McGuire LLC press release.

Backed by Michael Aschenbrener of Edelson McGuire and Kassra Nassiri of Nassiri & Jung LLP, Graf filed suit in San Francisco Federal Court yesterday under the claim that Zynga "collected the Facebook data of its 218 million users and shared it with advertisers and data brokers in violation of federal law and Zynga's contract with Facebook," according to Edelson McGuire.

Graf expects Zynga to provide both monetary relief and further protection from abuses of privacy to the company's loyal players, Edelson McGuire says. Aschenbrener adds, "This appears to be another example of an online company failing the American public with empty promises to respect individual privacy rights."

When Facebook completely shut down some Lolapps games, a smaller studio by comparison, for the entire weekend in response to the news, it was only a matter of time before somebody targeted the biggest potential offender. We've contacted Zynga for comment, so stay tuned for potential updates.

Update: Zynga replied with this official statement: "We believe that the complaint is without merit and we intend to defend against it vigorously."

[Via Portfolio]

Do you think Zynga deserves a court case for its alleged crime? What else do you think could be done to settle the issue? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.