The Europe v. Facebook case is gaining in popularity, with over 11,000 complaintants joining the case so far.
The lawsuit is being led by Austrian Max Schrems, who is claiming Facebook has infringed on a number of data privacy laws. He is inviting any Facebook users outside of the U.S. and Canada to join in the lawsuit. Schrems is claiming damages of 500 euros, or $670, per user who backs the claim.
"It is much more than we expected," Schrems said of the number of people who have joined so far.
While the $670 figure is low compared with similar cases in which between $1,000 and $2,700 was awarded as damages, according to Schrems, the idea is that the amount will be meaningful to Facebook, but not enough to make the case all about money.
This is not the first time that Schrems has had a run in with Facebook. In fact, the Austrian law student is known as "the thorn in Facebook's side," and was made famous for demanding that Facebook disclose all the information it had on him, after which he received a stack of 1,222 pages.
Despite the case not being all about money, with the amount of users currently backing the case, damages awarded could total up to $7.37 million.
The lawsuit is being held against Facebook Ireland, which essentially is the headquarters of Facebook outside of the U.S., and the case will be heard in Vienna, Austria. Austrian law essentially allows interested parties to assign claims to a single person, which in this case is Max Schrems. Schrems also said the group has chosen Austria as the location for the lawsuit because it believes Ireland is overly sympathetic to the social media company's business processes.
Users can sign up to join the case at www.fbclaim.com.
According to Schrems, around 50 percent of Facebook users who have signed up so far are from Austria and Germany, with the majority of participants coming from the EU. Other countries high up on the list include Croatia, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK.
Outside of Europe, 23 people from South Africa and 122 people from Australia have signed up to back the case.
Users can still join the case at no financial risk. The reason for this is that the case is backed by a financier who will pay all legal fees in case of a loss in the courts, and will take 20 percent of damages earned in the event of a win.
