A Texas woman has filed a lawsuit against Facebook claiming the company conspired with Blockbuster to violate a federal law protecting customer video rental and sale records.

The suit, filed by Cathryn Harris in the U.S. District Court in Dallas, accuses Facebook of working with Blockbuster in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, after the film rental company entered into an agreement with Facebook to supply it with information about movies users rented or purchased from Blockbuster.com.

“This suit is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt in an e-mail statement.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a settlement agreement Facebook reached in September in a separate class-action suit over the same issue — namely, Facebook’s controversial Beacon program.

Launched in November 2007, some 44 companies agreed under the Beacon program to supply Facebook with information about the online transactions of Facebook users so the data could be broadcast to “friends” on a user’s Facebook page. Users were not asked if they w