In a ruling issued recently, a federal court judge gave the green light to a case that would block Facebook’s new advertising methods. The case claims that the new feature violates individuals’ right to control use of their identity. Facebook claims that this use is allowed by a law that identifies everyone as a “celebrity” in their social circle.
How Sponsored Stories will work
As of January, Facebook plans on rolling out a system it is calling “Sponsored Stories.” The feature will pull any update that mentions a brand name and place it at the top of the news feeds of an individual’s friends. In essence, mentioning or “liking” a brand makes an individual an automatic spokesperson for a particular brand. TechCrunch explains the feature like this:
Sponsored Stories are a way for Facebook to sell ads directly in the news feed. Image: TechCrunch
The case against Sponsored Stories
Angel Fraley, a member of Facebook, has brought a suit against Facebook to try to prevent the Sponsored Stories feature from going live. The suit claims that Facebook “unlawfully misappropriated Plaintiffs’ names, photographs, likenesses, and identities for use in paid advertisements without obtaining Plaintiffs’ consent.” The case also says that by not giving users a chance to opt out of the feature, Facebook is, in essence, posting fraudulent “likes” to business pages.
Facebook’s counter-arguments
The counter-arguments Facebook is bringing in court claim that users are agreeing to the Sponsored Stories feature by agreeing to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy on Facebook. Additionally, Facebook is claiming, within each circle of friends, every individual can be considered a “celebrity.” California law, specifically, allows for news agencies to cover the daily actions of celebrities because it can be considered news. Facebook claims that because everyone could be considered a celebrity, their actions regarding a brand are news. This means that Facebook can publish all users’ actions as news to their followers and fans.
An undecided area of law
Facebook originally tried to get the case thrown out of court. The federal judge, however, agreed that this is an “undecided area of law.” As an undecided area of law, the case will need to be adjudicated through the courts. The only other case that begins to address this question was Cohen v. Facebook, where Facebook was allowed to continue showing advertisements, but was warned that:
“Nothing in the provisions of the Terms documents to which Facebook has pointed constitutes a clear consent by members to have their name or profile picture shared in a manner that discloses what services on Facebook they have utilized, or to endorse those services.”
