Facebook sues Canadian adult Web site for illegal data mining

Match.com integrates with Facebook

Facebook is suing a group of people and a Canadian  aadult Web site publisher for allegedly trying to mine the social networking site for its users' personal data.

In the case, which was brought about in a San Jose court last June, Facebook claims that servers controlled by the defendants used automated scripts “to gain unauthorized access to Facebook's ‘friend finder' functionality,” to make more than 200,000 requests for personal information stored on Facebook's site.

Facebook amended the complaint on December 12, after obtaining court orders to identify who controlled the servers trying to access its site.

Istra Holdings, who controls the porn site SlickCash.com, was named as the defendant. The site offers commissions to Web publishers for referring consumers to its adult sites.

The complaint also names Brian Fabian and Josh Raskin, both of whom the suit says work at Istra in Toronto, Ming Wu of Markham, Ontario, as well as 14 other unidentified people.

Facebook has been undergoing a controversy with privacy issues since it made its site public earlier this year.

Facebook has requested a jury trial and seeks to block the defendants from accessing its computer systems in the future.