Student’s privacy battle against Facebook suffers setback

An Austrian student’s legal battle against Facebook, accusing it of helping the US security service collect personal data, suffered a setback after a Vienna court rejected his case on procedural grounds, both sides said yesterday.

The social media giant hailed the ruling, saying it showed the class-action lawsuit was unnecessary, as it defended its record on guarding customers’ privacy.

However, 27-year-old Max Schrems said he would appeal against the decision and keep going, as the court had not killed off the case entirely, but referred it on to a higher tribunal.