US Court Rules Facebook Widgets can be Considered Wiretaps

After a nine-year-long legal battle, a federal appeals court has ruled that Facebook’s practice of collecting data through its widgets could be considered a violation of anti-wiretapping laws.

The social media firm has long defended its actions by quoting the part of the federal Wiretap Act that defines wiretapping as interception of communications. According to a Gizmodo report, in Facebook’s logic, gathering user data isn’t the same as wiretapping without that active interception.

However, a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US has dismissed this technicality as it was found that the Facebook widget was collecting information from people who didn’t click on it. Such actions, they ruled, count as interception. more