In an interview with e-Commerce Times, Arnstein & Lehr attorney Misha Kerr made the point abundantly clear that “what you think is a private page is not private, and you never know who has access to it.”

Privacy settings and how you use them are becoming the subject of intense litigation. Kerr represented a person who inadvertently attended a filming party for an adult website.  The young woman never signed a release for her images but ended up on the adult Web site anyway. Kerr sued on behalf of the client, claiming violation of privacy and damage to her reputation.

The defendant responded by showing photos the woman had posted to a social networking site which were risque, arguing that her reputation could not be damaged too seriously. Just a few changes to the woman’s privacy settings could have changed the lawsuit’s outcome.

Many Facebook users face a similar risk of having their private lives exposed if they opted for settings Facebook recommended in December 2009. They may not have understood to what they were were agreeing.

If you fall into this category, read on. If not, you should still read on unless you don’t care about your privacy. The recommended settings are somewhat unsettling.  They give Facebook the right to publicize your own Facebook page’s private information  such as your photos, status updates and items you’ve posted.

The Web site ReadWriteWeb.com lists the three most important privacy settings to make sure you have set to your needs.  The first covers things you share, such as your status updates, photos, videos and other posted items; the second addresses who can see your personal information; and the third determines whether your account is accessible to search engines like Google.

All three  settings and more can be modified. For step-by-step directions, visit the ReadWriteWeb.com link.

• None Found

Manulife told Blanchard that her Facebook photos showed that she was able to work.  According to Blanchard’s attorney, Manulife claimed that pictures of Blanchard having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a vacation were enough proof to show that she was no longer depressed.  Her attorney says she had the right to go on a vacation and claims that she was wrongfully dismissed from her benefits.

International Business Times reports that Manulife has declined to comment on this dispute but has said in a statement that the company would not deny or terminate a valid claim simply because of published information on social networking sites like Facebook.

However, Blanchard’s attorney is claiming that her doctor recommended she go on vacation and that Manulife terminated her disability benefits without proper medical recommendations, relying on the Facebook photos instead.

The lesson: Be careful what you post on Facebook or any other social networking site; it is public information, not a private diary.

• None Found

Facebook generates revenue through advertising and apps.  The Beacon ad program began with a promising future, but took several bad turns.  To put it simply, the Beacon ad program essentially told Facebook members about their friends’ e-commerce activity.

However, a unexpected problem came to light; the program also tracked non-Facebook users. PC World reported that Beacon kept tabs on activities of all users in third-party partner sites, including people who never signed up for Facebook or who deactivated their Facebook accounts.  That information included the addresses of Web pages a user visited and information on action taken at the partner site. As a result, the privacy concerns that plagued Beacon from the first day turned into lawsuits.

In California, preliminary approval has been given to Facebook’s settlement of a class-action lawsuit regarding Beacon. But the resolution of the other legal actions is more complicated.  Some consumers who are pursuing two other Beacon-related lawsuits in Texas attempted to intervene in the case, but a federal magistrate rejected their effort. The magistrate ruled that the motion to intervene was filed over a year after the lawsuit was initially brought, and therefore was untimely.

Some consumers in Texas are attempting to pursue their own class-action lawsuits against Facebook and Blockbuster (a large participant in the Beacon ad program).  However, if the California settlement is approved, the Texas lawsuits may be dismissed even though the Texas lawsuit against Blockbuster was filed before the California case.

MediaPost reports:

“The California agreement, entered into last month, calls for Facebook to shutter Beacon permanently and to pay $9.5 million, approximately two-thirds of which will fund a new privacy foundation. The individual consumers named in the complaint would receive damages ranging from $1,000 to $15,000, and their lawyers would be eligible to receive up to one-third of the settlement fund.”

Conversely, Texas consumers might be entitled to at least $2,500 each if their lawsuit proceeds.  A federal law (Video Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2710) aimed specifically at protecting the confidentiality of movie rental records provides for up to $2,500 in damages.  Moreover, although Blockbuster’s contract with users calls for disputes to be heard by an arbitrator, a federal judge in Dallas ruled that the case could proceed in court.  The judge also ruled that because the agreement in Blockbuster’s contract allowed for the company to change the terms and conditions at any time, it was an “illusory” contract. Blockbuster now has a pending appeal in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Additionally, those Blockbuster customers in Texas have also filed a lawsuit against Facebook.

The outcomes in California and Texas jurisdictions will also play a role in other cases involving Beacon, Blockbuster, and Facebook.   The judge in the California case could grant final approval to the settlement but he also told the lawyers to address whether the final agreement should cover Facebook members who might have claims under the Video Privacy Protection Act.

• None Found

The messages include traditional voice messages as well as Google Voice’s innovative new feature, transcribed voice messages.  What was most worrisome for Google was the inadvertent invasion of privacy, in which callers’ phone numbers and names are listed.

However, i4u.com reported that there was a possibility that the files were nothing more than promotional or test recordings done by Google.  If that were true, it still begs the question: why would these  recordings be hidden unless of course they weren’t promotional or test recordings at all?

The Boy Genius Report has reportedly received information that could clear up any confusion Google had created:

“UPDATE: It seems as if these voicemails have been publicly posted/shared online and Google indexes them. Here’s official word:

‘Since the initial idea behind posting a voicemail, was precisely to share it with others, we did not restrict crawling of those messages that users post on the web, but we can certainly understand that users would want to make them public on their sites but not necessarily searchable directly outside of their own website. We made a change to prevent those to be crawled so only the site owner can decide to index them.’”

Techcrunch.com claims that as a result, Google has decided to change its policy and no longer indexes the voice messages.

• None Found