The U.S. Solicitor General has filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Spokeo’s appeal of a lower court decision allowing a proposed class action to move forward because Spokeo allegedly published false information about the named plaintiff in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). He further alleged that Spokeo compiles false information from many sources, prepares reports and sells the information, in violation of the FCRA.

The case hinges on whether the named plaintiff has Article III standing to sue under the FCRA if he can’t show actual damages. Spokeo’s stance is supported by eBay, Facebook, Google and Yahoo. They argue that if the Court allows the proposed class to go forward without the requirement to show actual harm, the floodgates will open for class action litigation for no injury violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act and other statutes.

The Solicitor General argued that the “public dissemination of inaccurate personal information” is concrete harm that should satisfy the harm element of Article III standing.