Facebook said it had filed a lawsuit against a South Korean analytics company that may have mishandled users' personal information, a legal salvo that the social-media giant described as a "message" meant to demonstrate its heightened vigilance over privacy.
The lawsuit filed in a San Mateo, California, court targets Rankwave, a South Korean firm that had offered at least 30 apps to consumers and business. Facebook contends that Rankwave may have improperly harnessed comments or other data posted on pages it operated "for its own business purposes," potentially with the aim of "providing consulting services to advertisers and marketing companies."
Facebook said in its lawsuit that Rankwave failed to cooperate as part of its investigation into the allegations, repeatedly ignoring months of questions about the extent to which it may have shared data - in violation of Facebook's rules - with other clients. In February, Rankwave denied the charges, according to the court filing, but Facebook said the analytics firm never provided sufficient proof.
In bringing the case - which seeks to force Rankwave to delete any data it mishandled and potentially pay back ill-gotten monetary gains - Facebook sought to stress its willingness to take legal action against businesses that break its rules. In April, the tech giant sued a New Zealand-based company that tried to sell fake likes on its photo-sharing site, Instagram.
"By filing the lawsuit, we are sending a message to developers that Facebook is serious about enforcing our policies, including requiring developers to cooperate with us during an investigation," Jessica Romero, the director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation at Facebook, wrote in a blog post.
