FTC Goes After Jerk.com For Unauthorized Use Of Facebook Users’ Personal Data

Calling someone a jerk is rude to start off with, but launching a since-shuttered website that collected personal information from Facebook users was definitely a jerk move in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission, as CNET reported that the FTC filed a complaint against Jerk.com Monday.

JerkCom650Calling someone a jerk is rude to start off with, but launching a since-shuttered website that collected personal information from Facebook users was definitely a jerk move in the eyes of the Federal Trade Commission, as CNET reported that the FTC filed a complaint against Jerk.com Monday.

According to CNET, the site currently occupying the Jerk.com URL is not the one being targeted by the FTC.

The commission alleged in its complaint, as reported by CNET, that Jerk.com — created by Napster Co-Founder John Fanning — illegally tapped into Facebook users’ personal information to create profiles and have its users label the subjects of these profiles as “jerk” or “not a jerk.”

Those subjects were then told they had to pay $30 for “premium” features in order to dispute the jerk tags, according to the FTC complaint.

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