Judge says Facebook must face class-action lawsuit over scanning private messages

A U.S. District judge in Oakland has ruled that Facebook, Inc. must face a class-action lawsuit that claims the company violated users' right to privacy by scanning their private messages. The plaintiffs in the case have alleged the company scanned private user messages on its site to help determine user preferences and target personal ads to them. Facebook allegedly counted the number of links users sent through those messages and added them to a total of "likes" for those linked sites, which would…