Facebook, along with 8 of the participants in Beacon, the social networking Web site’s controversial advertising program, are facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly violating several laws when they tracked some of Facebook member’s activity on certain partner sites to show through users' news feeds what, when and where from they were buying something.

Users that missed to click “no” on a notice during checkout found out later that Facebook news feed displayed what they had purchased. It may not seem very harmful, but who wants to be exposed at such a degree?

During the holyday period we all buy several items for us and especially for our dear ones. Unfortunately, Facebook ruined Christmas for numerous people who bought gifts for their wives/husbands, girl/boyfriends but couldn’t surprise their loved ones anymore because they had already found out what gifts to expect just by surfing through the social networking web site.

"The heart of the conduct complained of involved the communication, transmission, and interception of personally identifying information and personal private data of the class members," according to the suit.

All in all, Facebook and the other Beacon participants such as Blockbuster, Fandango, Overstock.com, STA Travel, Zappos.com, Hotwire, and GameFly, stand accused of violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) and several other laws. The VPPA was enacted after a newspaper made the mistake of revealing Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records.

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeks to make Facebook restrict Beacon and to erase the information gathered so far from its users.

The damages sought by those who filed suit weren’t specified yet.