Judge Rejects Settlement In Facebook Sponsored Stories Case

angry tapir writes "A U.S. District Court judge has rejected a proposed settlement in a lawsuit that alleges Facebook violated users' rights by using their names and recommendations of advertisers to be publicized through a Sponsored Stories program. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, was filed in the Northern District of California by five Facebook members on behalf of as many as 100 million users of the social networking site."

Comments

Why is it legal at all?

[ka9dgx]

Why should Facebook get to use my picture to promote things I've never heard of? They get to display ads, isn't that enough?

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[gr8_phk]

Why should Facebook get to use my picture to promote things I've never heard of? They get to display ads, isn't that enough?

Hence the lawsuit.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[lookatmyhorse]

once you upload the photo, doesn't it become FB property?

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you agreed to it in exchange for the valuable consideration of access to their services.

Although they really should have sent you a dollar, because at the rate the stock is falling, you won't really be able to call that "valuable consideration" much longer.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe that's what this lawsuit is determining.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then change your photo to a can of coke, but keep liking and posting stories about pepsi. Once the marketing droids at pepsi keep seeing a can of coke sponsoring their product, they'll soon stop doing it. Of course substitute mcdonalds/ford/verizon or whatever evil corp has a similar competitor you choose, and you might have to get more creative with the photos too (turds for microsoft phones for example - oh, wait...), but you get the idea.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[realityimpaired]

Facebook operates in different jurisdictions, however... and in some of those jurisdicitons, you can't give away copyright like that. In other areas (some of which overlap the first group), they can't use your image or your name without your permission.

The US has some seriously fucked up laws, when it comes to privacy, and I'm glad that the judge is calling them to task on it. Sadly, I'm not certain that the lawsuit will be as successful as it would be if it were filed in Canada, Germany, or any of the other areas where this kind of thing is *really* illegal.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[oldredlion]

"Why should Facebook get to use my..."

http://m5.paperblog.com/i/8/82628/hero-comparison-wikileaks-vs-facebook-assange-L-NiA62d.jpeg

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Baloroth]

Obviously, what they are doing wasn't legal, not in the way they were doing it. Facebook wouldn't have proposed a ~$20 million settlement deal if they thought what they were doing was legal.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[mwvdlee]

I don't know about US law, but in Dutch law there are certain inalienable with regards to portrait photographs. I.e. rights that cannot be transferred in any legal way, not even by release to public domain. One of these is that a portrait photograph cannot be used outside it's intended purpose withour explicit consent of both the photographer and the photographed person. In practice this means most advertisers can use pictures without problem as long as they don't claim the photographed individual endorses their product. It also means that your local neo-nazi party cannot use your public domain portrait in their advertising unless you give them explicit permission.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[vlm]

Because you agreed to it in exchange for the valuable consideration of access to their services.

The phrase usually used is "sufficient consideration" which is a whole nother kettle of fish.

Here's a typical Canadian release form:

http://www.capic.org/download_pdfs/Form-en-2--Model-Agreement.pdf

From talking to photographers its a widespread belief that you need to pay a Canadian model "a hundred dollars" more or less, otherwise historically judges have voided contracts for $1 or whatever. Pr0n is more expensive, I'm just talking about random glamour shots for marketing purposes, etc.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Facebook get to use my picture to promote things I've never heard of?

Because you agreed that it was alright for them to do.

I don't know why you'd agree to something like that. It seems foolish to me, but you get to make your own choices.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[icebraining]

No. Also, property is often not enough, here in Europe we have image rights, which are independent of copyright.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[andydread]

Like asking "why should poor people who already cannot afford their own lives start having children they know they can't afford?" I have no idea. It makes zero sense. But they do it anyway. Maybe they hate children and want them to suffer in poverty?

yep hope you don't ever have kids. If you do hope none of them have sex until they are married. If the do then the answer is right in your back yard. Think!

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Teun]

Why should in this day and age having sex result in getting children?

I mean like here last year there were on every 1000 teenagers 5 that had a baby, in the USofA it's 64 or so.
Because I'm pretty sure our teenagers have the same sex drive as in other 1st. world countries this has a lot to do with education.
Have you instructed your kids on the subject?

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Calydor]

Which becomes a very big issue when you upload a photo you do not hold copyright for in the first place.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[ColdWetDog]

Why should in this day and age having sex result in getting children?

I mean like here last year there were on every 1000 teenagers 5 that had a baby, in the USofA it's 64 or so.

Because I'm pretty sure our teenagers have the same sex drive as in other 1st. world countries this has a lot to do with education.

Have you instructed your kids on the subject?

Blasphemer. Philistine.

I bet you live in a country that has "Social Democracy" emblazoned somewhere. We here in America trust in God**.

We really do.

** Which may explain our teenage pregnancy rate, poor health statistics, increasing financial disparities and the fact that we can pound the everloving crap out of everyone else on the planet without breaking a sweat (as long as they don't stoop to IEDs and Kalashnikovs).

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[dontmakemethink]

The bigger question is how people still see ads at all. Is their ad blocker malfunctioning?

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't that the premise of one of their commercials? An employee of coca-cola who was caught buying a pepsi? A can of coke recommending a Pepsi product sounds like a great marketing strategy.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[vux984]

Wasn't that the premise of one of their commercials? An employee of coca-cola who was caught buying a pepsi? A can of coke recommending a Pepsi product sounds like a great marketing strategy.

That's pretty much been Pepsi's marketing premise for over 20 years now. Its either... "Hey look a Celebrity is drinking pepsi" or "Hey look, a Coke employee is drinking pepsi".

Coke commercials have been far more imaginative and entertaining over the years, and have never once mentioned pepsi.

You can tell which brand is the leader and which is the wannabe. :p

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[Teun]

Who's the blasphemer, I live in a Constitutional Monarchy, don't you insult the Queen!

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[IAmGarethAdams]

If you've never heard of something, why did you say you Like it on Facebook?

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[gmhowell]

once you upload the photo, doesn't it become FB property?

I haven't checked in quite a while, but I don't think so. What they do get in exchange for you being allowed to post a photo, is the non-exclusive and universal publishing rights to the photo. They can use your photo for damn near anything they want. The only they can't do is give or sell the rights to someone else.

Re:Why is it legal at all?

[mug funky]

if my friends and family can handle it, i might change my pic to goatse.

but then, what i say has little clout :(

How much good will is worth

[Anonymous Coward]

So, let me get this straight... with Facebook, we are the product since they have no tangible property other than what we feed it. The proposed class-action involves an estimated 10 x10^7 people. To make everyone happy, Facebook proposes that they pay $10 x 10^6 to third-party organizations that promote privacy. Not only are they not compensating the people, they are paying roughly a dime a head to a third party organization that has no bearing on Facebooks policies and practices.

Us:"I don't like they way you're treating my data and my posted stories of my life"
Facebook:"Would it make you feel better if I gave this guy you've never met 10 cents?"

Re:How much good will is worth

[DerekLyons]

That's essentially what Google has been trying to do with books... so it should be OK for Facebook to do it.

Re:How much good will is worth

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that what Google's trying to do is beneficial to society - create a giant collection of knowledge, free. Many groups have hailed it as an essential step in accessibility of previously unavailable texts.

Facebook is selling your face as ads.

Re:How much good will is worth

[flimflammer]

This is exactly the reason why I think class actions are for the most part scams. Unless you're one of the named plaintiffs who initiated the class action or their lawyer, those involved will rarely ever see something out of it. I remember getting an email over some class action related to Netflix regarding privacy issues. The proposed settlement by the 3-4 named plaintiffs was some $30k for them, their lawyer was $2 million or more, and some amount I don't recall for a charity. No one else got anything at all. They even made it difficult to opt out because by default everyone is opted in for some stupid reason. I had to scour the webpage they created for it, and it was buried real deep that I had to send a written request to some PO box or something.

Class actions are hardly even an effective punishment most times, because the end amount, added all up, is usually just a slap on the wrist.

Reason for rejection

[Samantha Wright]

TFS doesn't mention any details at all, so here's what the proposed settlement is (agreed to, I think, by both sides):

• Ten million dollars to "privacy organizations"
• Ten million dollars in attorneys' fees (hoooo boy—no wonder Valve didn't want class action suits brought against them...)
• Better controls over how names and likenesses are used in advertising.

The judge feels that Facebook's 100 million affected users may not be getting adequate compensation from this arrangement—and is pondering whether it's even possible to provide so many people with compensation.

Re:Reason for rejection

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's not about privacy. This isn't like Facebook lied about a product which was killing people. It's smarmy lawyers seeing a company making a mistake and getting erections at the fabulous wealth it will bring them by using a system built by lawyers for lawyers to enrich themselves acting as the functional equivalent of parasites on a host body.

Re:Reason for rejection

[Samantha Wright]

And I think that's why the judge is raising such a fuss. It's like Facebook is withholding a feature update, pending a $20 million dollar payout to various friends (and enemies?) in the legal industry. Kinda hard to ignore!

Re:Reason for rejection

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed this practice a few years ago, when I had an active facebook account. I noticed that Facebook said "Hey, your friends used ____ app, you should too!" and given the friends that it showed, it seemed highly unlikely that those particular friends would have used this particular app; so I took a screenshot and inquired with those individuals -- they said they had NOT in fact, used that app.

This really makes me mad, and I think it's wrong and it's one of the many reasons I LEFT facebook -- however I don't know how to put a dollar value on personal damages here. I mean -- I'm ok, as a person. It wasn't directly injurious to me (other than that it probably told other people I used some app -- which would have been a lie), but I feel like Facebook should at least be facing punitive damages for engaging in this dishonest practice, and given their size, it would need to be a substantial sum in order for it to be felt at all. While I would love to see some of that $$$ in my pocket, I don't think I can rightfully claim it, and would be ok with the money being given to privacy orgs, the EFF, etc.

Re:Reason for rejection

[Trepidity]

While that's generally true, in the U.S. it's also really the only way to actually enforce a wide range of things. The European approach is to make it hard to bring class-action suits, and instead to regulate businesses' conduct directly. So for example there is an EU directive on data privacy, and there are national regulators who will go after violations.

The American approach instead is to use the adversarial court system as the primary means of regulation. If there were a suspected auto defect, for example, a European government would investigate it, and then based on the results of their investigation would issue orders to fix the problem (if real) and/or fines. In the American system, instead, it is up to people who allege they have been harmed to bring a lawsuit and prove their case in court.

Re:Reason for rejection

[turkeyfeathers]

The judge feels that Facebook's 100 million affected users may not be getting adequate compensation from this arrangement—and is pondering whether it's even possible to provide so many people with compensation.

Of course it is... shut down Facebook. I'd consider that a fair deal.

Re:Reason for rejection

[DerekLyons]

The American approach instead is to use the adversarial court system as the primary means of regulation. If there were a suspected auto defect, for example, a European government would investigate it, and then based on the results of their investigation would issue orders to fix the problem (if real) and/or fines. In the American system, instead, it is up to people who allege they have been harmed to bring a lawsuit and prove their case in court.

You should have picked a better example - because product recalls due to lawsuits are pretty rare. Generally, they're either voluntary (by the manufacturer), suggested (without a lawsuit) by a third party (such as a consumer watchdog group), or imposed by the regulatory agencies you claim don't exist.

Re:Reason for rejection

[Anonymous Coward]

And in practice, the main difference is that in the EU, fines (like the fines against Microsoft) go into the public coffers, where they indirectly alleviate the tax burden on everyone, while in the US, they go into the coffers of law firms that bring class action lawsuits. While it's not the worst system you could have, it's a hefty price to pay to essentially get private law firms to do the job of the public's prosecutor.

isn't that enough?

[Errol backfiring]

Off course that is not enough. It's facebook. All your data are belong to them.

Lawyers should be sanctioned

[crow]

Clearly, this is a case where the lawyers are out to get their fees, with no regard for their clients' interests. The judge should make it clear that if the lawyers propose or accept a settlement that is not clearly within their clients' interests, then legal fees will not be included.

A better question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you give your picture to Facebook?

But That's Usually How It Works

[Greyfox]

Why is the judge worried about user compensation? The way a class action usually works (We all know it, sing along!) is the lawyers get 300 million dollars and the users get a $10 gift certificate to Hot Topic.

Re:But That's Usually How It Works

[Samantha Wright]

Once in a while, a judge comes along who either hasn't been informed of how such things work, or hasn't been cut into the deal and happens to not like the lawyers who stand to profit from the arrangement. I imagine the usual tactic goes something like "but think of the children!" followed by the suit mysteriously being dropped... possibly to be refiled elsewhere.

Our picture is just a license

[Cutting_Crew]

just like software companies are trying to say that we don't OWN anything that we buy from them and therefore first sale doctrine doesn't apply, we too should have the right to only offer up pictures to facebook as a LICENSE - something that facebook doesn't own.. and if they want to use our picture to sell to someone else we should get royalties.

why do the lawyers get all the money

[swschrad]

when they were not the ones aggrieved by this heinous theft of personal property? the lion's share of a class action should go to members of the class.

Re:why do the lawyers get all the money

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the law, son.