• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 30, 2010

A Virginia resident has sued data broker Rapleaf, as well as Facebook and game developer Zynga, for violating users' privacy by allegedly sending their names and other personal information to advertisers.

"Defendants inappropriately and unlawfully transmitted sensitive personally identifiable information, including Facebook User IDs ... and real names, to third parties," Barbara Moskowitz alleges in court papers filed recently in federal district court in San Jose, Calif. She argues that Rapleaf violated wiretap laws, and also that the transmission of data about her was done in violation of Facebook's contracts with app developers.

Moskowitz argues that she can sue Rapleaf for allegedly breaching deals with Facebook and Zynga on the theory that those agreements were meant to benefit users like herself. She also named Facebook and Zynga as defendants; both of those companies already face similar lawsuits.

Moskowitz's lawsuit is the most recent case to stem from recent reports in The Wall Street Journal detailing how Facebook, as well as app developers, are transferring information about users to advertisers via referrer headers. The Journal also reported that Rapleaf transmitted a user's identifying information to at least 12 different companies.

Moswokitz argues in her complaint that the alleged transmittal of her name to advertisers violates Facebook's policies, which prohibit developers from transferring user data to ad networks or brokers. She alleges that Facebook also promises in its privacy policy that it requires developers to respect users' privacy and that it deploys "technical measures" to police app developers.

While Facebook has received much bad press as a result of allegations that users' names are transmitted to ad networks, the lawsuit's chance of success seems questionable.

Internet law expert Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle says it's unclear whether disclosing users' names through referrer headers violates the federal Stored Communications Act, but that the breach of contract claim might be easier to prove.

"I think they make a good argument that Facebook's policy and Facebook's own contracts are being violated," Balasubramani says. However, he adds, it's difficult to prevail in a breach of contract lawsuit without some sort of out-of-pocket loss.