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November 9, 2007
Facebook Social Ads Are Illegal
If you haven't heard by now and you're a Facebook member then READ THIS. Facebook recently announced their advertising engine to leverage its tens of millions of users. One of their plans calls for social ad networking. For example let's say Pepsi buys tons of ad space from Facebook. Facebook knows you like Pepsi. Facebook nabs your image, slaps on Pepsi's ad and sends it to all your friends. Does that sound okay to you?
via Web Guild
In most states people have given Facebook the right to do whatever when they accepted Facebook's user agreement, because nobody ever really reads that. Problem is it's illegal in New York since there's a 100 year old law in place that prohibits the use of anyone's name, portrait, picture, or voice used within the state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained" can sue for damages, and doing so is a criminal misdemeanor.
This is similar to what Virgin Mobile did when they took the image of a 16 y.o. girl from flickr and created an ad for bus shelters. They were promptly hit with a law suit so I can't imagine the same not happening to Facebook, especially in law suit happy America.
Posted by tranism at 11:42 AM | Permalink