{"id":2255,"date":"2014-01-14T18:57:43","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T18:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2255"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","slug":"more-legal-trouble-for-facebook-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/more-legal-trouble-for-facebook-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"More Legal Trouble for Facebook in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, January 14, 2014, by Christina Wheaton
\nOn January 9, 2014, a Colorado man filed<\/a> a class action lawsuit against Facebook in San Jose, California. Facebook users are able to create Facebook pages on the social network, often for companies or individuals, which may be \u201cLiked\u201d by other Facebook users.\u00a0 In his complaint, Anthony Ditirro claims that Facebook is \u201cunlawfully using its customers\u2019 likenesses and Facebook profiles to create a false impression that its customers are promoting a particular company or product without said customer\u2019s knowledge or consent.\u201d
\nDitirro alleges that Facebook used his image to imply that he has \u201cLiked\u201d the USA Today Facebook page. He claims that while his image was used to promote the USA Today Facebook page in the News Feed of at least one of his Facebook friends, he never liked the page. He was unaware of this practice<\/a> until his Facebook friends informed him that his image was being used. He also claims to have never even visited the USA Today website. Under California Law, an individual may seek damages when his or her image is used without permission. Ditirro seeks statutory and punitive damages of at least $750 per person for any user who has been featured in ads suggesting they liked a product or page when, in reality, they did not.<\/p>\n

In his complaint, Anthony Ditirro claims that Facebook is \u201cunlawfully using its customers\u2019 likenesses and Facebook profiles to create a false impression that its customers are promoting a particular company or product without said customer\u2019s knowledge or consent.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, Ditirro is not the only one who has noticed that Facebook is using his image without his consent to promote other Facebook pages. In 2012, some Facebook users noted that the social network was exploiting images of users who had passed away to promote particular pages or products through \u201cLikes.\u201d More recently, it has come to light that celebrities, business, and even the United States State Department, have purchased fake \u201cLikes\u201d on the social network. The practice is not confined to Facebook, as fake Twitter followers and YouTube viewers are also up for sale.
\nFacebook responded to Ditirro\u2019s claim by saying the complaint is \u201cwithout merit,\u201d and that it plans to \u201cdefend [itself] vigorously.\u201d And the social network will have the experience to do so, as this is hardly the first advertising related lawsuit to plague the company. In August of 2013, Facebook paid a $20 million settlement in a class action<\/a> dealing with \u201cSponsored Stories.\u201d \u201cSponsored Stories\u201d displayed the images of Facebook users who have \u201cLiked\u201d a page in advertisements in their friends\u2019 News Feeds. Following the settlement, Facebook announced its plans to terminate<\/a> the practice of \u201cSponsored Stories\u201d on April 9, 2014.
\nFacebook was hit with yet another class action lawsuit<\/a> at the end of December 2013, alleging that the social network scanned users\u2019 private messages without their consent in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The complaint alleges that the information obtained was then sold to advertisers. It remains to be seen how the social network will respond to each of these lawsuits, as well as if the lawsuits will have any effect on Facebook\u2019s advertising practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, January 14, 2014, by Christina Wheaton On January 9, 2014, a Colorado man filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook in San Jose, California. Facebook users are able to create Facebook pages on the social network, often for companies or individuals, which may be \u201cLiked\u201d by other Facebook users.\u00a0 In his complaint, Anthony Ditirro …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7533,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2255\/revisions\/7533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}