The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.
Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there.
You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.
You didn't mention fraud, and I made no comment on fraud. I said they lied. They did.
As for the clumsy smokescreen analogy about Subway, allow me to point out the obvious:
Facebook made promises to users about how FACEBOOK would handle the personal property of said users. These are concrete, easily-definable promises...the kind which are easy to analyze to see if the promise was kept.
It wasn't kept. Furthermore, as the FTC documented in plain English, there was a pattern of behavior, over and over again, that shows any reasonable person that not only did Facebook lie, they lied with prior intent. They never had any intention of keeping those promises and they broke them in the most egregious ways possible.
By contrast, when Subway implies that customers can lose weight by eating certain foods there, they are, obviously, making no promises about how Subway will behave in the future, except an implied promise to be honest about how many calories are in their food (required by law), and to provide some lo-cal options (which they do).
Really bad analogy, in every way.
Yeah, but lying to people isn't a crime. Defrauding them is, but lies and fraud are quite different things.
Yes, but Facebook disclosed personal information which people expected to remain private. Your Subway analogy doesn't cut it because Subway is trusted to disclose information, whereas Facebook is trusted to enclose it.
Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud.
From the dictionary:
"Fraud: Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain."
From the FTC report:
"Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did."
If that isn't fraud, I don't know what is.
Fortunately, the law in many countries does not permit such one-sided terms.
Jared Fogle did lose weight eating at Subway.
