Comments on: Facebook user drops lawsuit over virus

Florida librarian had sought $70.50 in lawsuit, saying social network breached a "legal duty to exercise at least reasonable care with regard to the safety of its network."

[protagonistic]

The only sure way to protect these idiots is to go in and unplug their computer.

[N3RDemon]

No kidding lol.

[ducttape36]

70 dollars? wow. good way to get in debt with legal fees. if he won, that would set a dangerous precedent.

[sharmajunior]

I think he wants his money back to buy a 2 year license for an antivirus or a internet security program...LOL

[spoonie1972]

"Your free service hurt me emotionally".

Hilarious. If he gets his $70 and change, it'll be the Tort case of the century.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Wow, this has to be a first in a very long time- a lawsuit without insanely high damages requested. Makes you want to root for the guy just based on that alone.

[terminalblue]

i agree

[Seaspray0]

Absolutely.

[Dalkorian]

Not really. Everything about this "lawsuit", including the damages requested, absolutely *SCREAMS* "frivolous" to me. Plus $70 doesn't seem that high, until you consider how much it costs to use FB (financially, as FB is a time vampire so your time means nothing on that site).

[HlLLARY CLITON]

you don't have to be intelligent to file a lawsuit

[macewan_]

That guy is no dummy.

[terminalblue]

i cant be the only one that thinks that FB's response is kind of douchey? i mean, if this was a case involving hundreds of thousands of dollars there comment would be "no comment" instead they come out "nobodies getting anything". and this could be a very important case if it is won (and appealed and appealed). in theory, it could make service providers responsible for the content that travels across their networks.

When you think about it, since everyone compare the internet to the highway system. This would be like if municipality failed to repair a pothole and caused damage to your car as a result. I guess the question would be what did FB and the user do AFTER the virus was found and when was the victims computer infected.

could be interesting.

[spoonie1972]

Exactly how was the users' computer infected? If it was simply a database error on the part of Facebook, or an issue on their servers, it seems out of bounds.

Surely, downtime and/or loss of data is not Facebooks' problem. I'll admit, I didn't actually *read* the EULA.

[jchanski21]

My thoughts exactly. I can just picture whoever gave that statement laughing as they said "Seriously, we're glad to know how important Facebook is to Mr. Karantsalis..." almost as if to say "It's just a free social networking site. Get over it."

But based on this guy's apparent paranoia about online security, I think his issue was the FACT that it happened to him, not what actually happened. If that's the case, the facebook ****** who made that statement totally missed the point. If that's not the case... then maybe this guy gets paid $25 an hour and wants 3 hours of his life back?

[gefitz]

If this guy wants three hours of his life back, tell him to stop using Facebook.

[dacopper]

I probably wouldn't care whether this guy gets his $70 or not, but that "there's no life beyond Facebook, you idiot" comment from the spokesperson, I really wish he adds 5-6 more zeroes to his lawsuit for all the emotional suffering he had to go through. After all, there's no life beyond Facebook, right Mr. Spokesman?

[databrain]

So basically this guy just goes around and files lawsuits with people? Sounds expensive. so who pays for that? the people hes sewing, himself or the taxpayer?

[dacopper]

It only makes sense for you to pay for these lawsuits. In fact, you should pay for ALL lawsuits being filed in this country for failing the How Tax and Court Systems Work 101 class.

[dlowg]

learn how to spell stupid suing not sewing

[macewan_]

he's

[rrod182]

LOL....If he wins I'm going to sue Facebook because they waste about 60% of my day. Then I'll sue MySpace because they suck. Finally I'll sue this guy because he's an ass. Then I'll sue c-net because they wasted my time with this article about an ass.

[dlowg]

why don't we poke each other and resolve the matter.i bet i see this guy in the castro at next years parade wearing his new gay t-shirt that says pokey pokey.

[monkeyfun14]

Wouldn't you pay more in court fee's?

[Vegaman_Dan]

I sued FaceBook for $70, made national news, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt! :)

[Dalkorian]

LOL - best comment so far. Thanks Dan, that was a good laugh.
:-D

[nissen250]

He needs to be much more careful about the suits. Remember the nursery tale about chicken little. After a while he may not get any hearing. Weigh the pros and cons before filing.
Stuff like this is why I don't use many social sites.

[electricTwo]

There's another saying that goes: The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

If you don't take people to court, you don't learn about how to take people to court.

[Harrison912]

I mainly use FaceBook to socially market my safety and security web site as well as raise awareness for its products so security measures are important to me too. However, in this case, Mr. Karantsalis got what he wanted; attention. After all, here we are on Cnet talking about him and his faux law suit. Thanks, Elinor, for letting us join in the fun!

[TheoKarantsalis]

I also wanted to test an innovative approach to promote the Library and Internet Research classes I plan on teaching in the Fall. (I'm certain to have a full class now.)

I received quite a few e-mails from people who want to know about some of the court cases. I'll let you decide whether each one was frivolous or not.

http://socialmediapress.blogspot.com/2009/05/librarian-vs-facebook-inc-discussion.html

Kind regards to all of you. I value everyone on this board at more than 30 cents. ;) Even dlowg.

Theo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3-N74vYUIE&feature=channel_page

[Aitrusskyy]

Lol wow. This was my first laugh of the day. Thanks Cnet for the great story. Made my day.

Now I think I'll go sue Mexico for the swine flu since I vacationed there last week and got it. Wasn't my fault though.

Cheers to the first users comment.

[i_sam]

How did he figure that it cost him $0.30 to re-add each friend? Besides...0.30 * 250 = $75

[electricTwo]

The legal "expert" who thought 47 USC 230 would not apply might not be right. The damage was caused to the librarian/activist's account, not to his computer. Something, which the person suing says was a virus, made changes to the Facebook account. Facebook is responsible to practice safe security, and if accounts are being changed willy nilly, it might be evidence that they don't have security measures in place. If a person's account is hijacked and starts sending spam, that person has been defamed because they have become a spammer in the eyes of their contacts. Their contacts might refuse to do business with them because of the security practices of the hosting service. Facebook is responsible to make a serious effort to prevent accounts from being hijacked, at least. Proving that Facebook was criminally , but this case wasn't about some third party posting as in 47 USC 230. I really think that it's irrelevant to this case.