A magazine for Harvard alumni – 02138 – obtained a raft of private data for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – including his social security number, parents’ address and the name of his girlfriend. The magazine posted it… all of it – in PDF form on its website as a companion to a piece the mag ran on the origins of the site within Harvard. So Facebook sued. Some of the documents are tied up as part of a lawsuit by rival (and much smaller) website ConnectU. “One reason the court ordered certain documents’ protection was to prevent exactly what has happened: misusing documents and taking documents out of context to sling mud,” lawyers told Kara Swisher’s BoomTown. And from 02138’s corner: “1) It was an oversight and as soon as 02138 was alerted they took it down. 2) The parents’ address is listed in the white pages and they are the only Zuckerbergs in Dobbs Ferry. 02138 nonetheless took it down as a courtesy. 3) This was not brought to 02138’s attention by Facebook.â€
The ironic twist here is Facebook’s launch of Beacon. The service collects users activities on a variety of websites. For a time, those activities were posted on the News Feed… but Facebookers freaked out… so they made it an opt-in service. Computer Associates found that FB is even collecting the data when users are logged out of Facebook OR even if they’ve opted-out.
02138’s editor Richard Bradley blogged this about the documents: “We believe that we have a legal right to post them online and that you have a legal right to read them. Meantime, spread the word that a company which plans to collect and sell personal information about 50 million people doesn’t want one magazine to do the same about Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg.â€