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Lawyer limits Facebook privacy litigants to 25,000 after deluge of requests

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By John Glenday, Reporter

August 8, 2014 | 2 min read

A lawyer preparing to take on the might of Facebook with a privacy law suit has been forced to stop accepting new complainants to back his case after being swamped with over 25,000 eager backers.

Max Schrems plans to take Facebook’s Irish subsidiary to court over allegations that it has breached European privacy laws and trampled on its members rights by tracking their activity on external sites through features such as ‘like’ buttons.

Other concerns relate to the way in which Facebook analyses users by way of ‘big data’ systems and the social media gorilla’s alleged support for the US government’s Prism surveillance programme.

Dubbing the looming battle as Europe Vs Facebook Schrems is currently building what could be the largest class and privacy action ever undertaken.

Schrems has set the cut-off for his action at 25,000 so that he can individually verify each account but has vowed to expand this register to include many more if his action gains traction.

Ay its peak as many as 7,000 people a day were registering from across Europe to claim damages of £397 per person.

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