RockYou, Unplugged

By: Valerie Milano

RockYou, a popular developer of online applications and services for sites such as Facebook and MySpace, left the door open for hackers to easily obtain and abuse the login credentials and email and password information of their 32,000,000 registered users. A class action lawsuit was filed on December 28, 2009 against RockYou for leaving personal information unencrypted and unsecured on their database.

The suit was brought by Alan Claridge of Indiana who was notified of the breach only after being reported the media. The lead attorney, Michael Aschenbrener of KamberEdelson, LLC stated, “The means of attack has been well documented for some time, as has been the means to prevent it.” The suit further alleges that RockYou did not do anything to protect its customers’ personal information, further stating, “How any company in possession of this much data could do nothing to secure it not only violates the law, but also basic common sense.”

Joining Aschenbrener in the lawsuit are Jay Edelson, Christopher Dore, and Benjamin Richman of KamberEdelson. “Unfortunately, this represents another in a long line of data loss disasters and cloud computing catastrophes in 2009," says Aschenbrener. "For everyone’s sake, let’s hope companies resolve to protect their customer data in 2010.”

KamberEdelson, LLC has much experience in complex litigation specializing in consumer class action law suits, acting as consumer advocates. Among dozens of others, they litigated the 2008 contaminated pet food recall, resulting in a settlement of over 24 million dollars and the Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends lead paint suit, which ended in a settlement of over 30 million dollars.

To download the complaint, visit:

http://www.prnewschannel.com/pdf/RockYou_Complaint%20v26__12_27_09_FINAL.pdf