Austrian law student Max Schrems appealed to a billion Facebook users around the world on Friday to join a class-action lawsuit against Facebook's alleged violations of its users' privacy, stepping up a years-long data-protection campaign, according to Reuters.
Schrems, a thorn in Facebook's side who has a case involving the social network pending at the European Court of Justice, has filed a claim at Vienna's commercial court and invited others to join the action at www.fbclaim.com using their Facebook login, Reuters reported.
Users from anywhere outside the United States and Canada may sign up to join the Austrian case, since Facebook runs all its international operations from Ireland, another EU country, according to Reuters.
The case relies largely on the EU Data Protection Directive, Reuters reported. Europe in general has stricter data-protection rules than the United States and considers itself more privacy-conscious.
Under Austrian law, a group of people may transfer their financial claims to a single person, according to Reuters. In this case, Schrems. Legal proceedings are then effectively run as a class action.
Schrems is claiming damages of 500 euros, or $670, per user for alleged data violations, including aiding the U.S. National Security Agency in running its Prism program, which mined the personal data of users of Facebook and other web services, Reuters reported.
The 26-year-old is also seeking injunctions under EU data-protection law at the court in data-privacy-friendly Austria, according to Reuters.
"Our aim is to make Facebook finally operate lawfully in the area of data protection," he said, Reuters reported.
The world's biggest social network, Facebook now has 1.32 billion users. It posted a 61 percent increase in sales in the second quarter thanks to mobile advertising, sending its shares to a record high and valuing the company at almost $200 billion, according to Reuters.
Facebook declined to comment on the Schrems case on Friday.
