Facebook Lawsuit Settled

Facebook has finally settled a lawsuit that was filed over the social networking website and their use of images in their advertising campaign, which is referred to as Sponsored Stories. The advertisements used a number of images from users of the social networking websites own Facebook page without asking. Facebook has chosen to settle the lawsuit for $10 million but before the settlement can be completed and finalized, it has to be approved by the federal judge first. The lawsuit was first filed in California back in March of 2011. Several Facebook users filed the lawsuit, which included two underage individuals. Amongst those who were part of the lawsuit were Angel Fraley, Paul Wang and Susan Mainzer. The names of the minors were not released because of their age. In the lawsuit, allegations were made against Facebook, stating that the social networking website used images from their accounts to advertise on the website, without even compensating them.

The way that Facebook chooses to advertise is the major issue, especially the way in which the social networking website has chosen to advertise for the Sponsored Stories campaign, using images of other Facebook users to portray advertisements that talk basically shows what he individual likes on their own personal Facebook page. Once the lawsuit was filed, the popular social networking site issued out their own statement, saying that they are carefully reviewing the lawsuit and believed, at that point, that there was no merit behind the allegations and lawsuit. However, some beg to differ. While Facebook calls this particular campaign Sponsored Stories, it is not just a story and is actually much more of an advertisement. And, when Facebook uses these advertisements, they are paid for them by the companies that are advertising. Facebook believes that when people choose to “Like” certain things, the website is allowed to use their name in advertisements without having to compensate them.

However, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, those who had their images and named used on the advertisements, argued that they were not compensated and believe they should have been. Facebook argued that these individuals are not celebrities and therefore do not have much value to their names and the things they like on Facebook, which was quite insulting to the plaintiffs, as they argued that they do not have to be any type of celebrity in order to be upset over their name or images being used without their permission or consent. They also argued that the privacy policy for Facebook misled them because they had no idea something like this could happen, where their name and images would be used in advertisements. Facebook wants to settle the lawsuit by offering $10 million to groups, not individual users but those filing the lawsuit may not be pleased with this type of settlement.