A class-action lawsuit was filed in November in a federal court in San Francisco accusing FarmVille creator Zynga of “illegally sharing the Facebook user data of its customers with advertisers and data brokers.”  The lawsuit alleges Zynga violated federal law and its contract with Facebook by sharing the user data of players on games such as FarmVille.  The lawsuit seeks “monetary relief” for those affected as well as an injunction to “prevent continued privacy abuses”.

News of the lawsuit follows a report from The Wall Street Journal claiming the most popular applications on Facebook were transmitting personal user data to advertisers and Internet tracking companies.  Facebook says it has taken immediate action to disable applications that violated terms of its privacy policy.