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Should Facebook 'Likes' Count As Commercial Endorsements?
The rationale for the case against the Facebook 'your-friends-have-liked-this' ads, seems to be that Facebook is violating laws and social norms against using someone's image in a commercial endorsement without their permission. But I can only think of two reasons for why those laws and social norms exist, and neither of those reasons would seem to apply to Facebook 'likes.' The two main reasons that come to mind are (1) loss of control over one's image, and (2) the creation of the false impression that the company has paid for a product endorsement.
Consider first the issue of the loss of control over your image. You would probably be annoyed if a company took a picture of your face and started featuring it prominently in their advertisements without your permission. (If you had taken the photo yourself, then the company would of course also be on the hook for copyright infringement, but let's assume that the company had one of their photographers take the photo so that they owned the copyright, and the only issue is the unfair use of your likeness.) At that point, you have no control over the dissemination of the picture. Even assuming that you like the way you look in the picture, you might find it creepy to think of thousands of strangers looking at the photo of you (or your kids). That would be an argument in favor of requiring companies to get people's permission before using their likenesses in advertisements.
But that argument would not apply to an ad in your Facebook feed which shows you the profile pictures of friends who have 'liked' a page. Those profile pictures were uploaded by those users expressly so that their Facebook friends could see them. At any time, they can select a different 'profile picture', or remove any profile pictures that they no longer wish to be visible to friends. (Facebook took a lot of well-deserved criticism for exposing users' profiles and pictures to non-friends, as well, even for users who have disabled that setting — but that's a separate issue. The "ads" in question only display your pictures to your friends.)
Second, consider the issue of creating the false impression of a paid product endorsement. With traditional advertisements, it might seem strange that people respond to ads featuring a nice, attractive-but-not-in-your-face-attractive person using a product, even if the photo doesn't seem to directly convey any information about the product itself. What the photo really conveys is that the company behind the product has resources — to hire models, photographers, lighting crews, photo editors, and of course to buy the space to display the ad. This ostentatious display of "resources" might reassure a customer that the company similarly has the resources to test their product thoroughly, to replace a product that breaks, or to honor their returns policy. But it only works if the user believes that the company actually did spend money on all of those things to create the ad.
This is even more true of ads featuring paid celebrities. Steven Landsburg, in a passage from his book The Armchair Economist, writes:
"[I]t is also common to see products endorsed by celebrities who have no particular expertise, and who are obviously being paid for their testimony. Well-known actresses endorse health clubs; ex-politicians endorse luggage; in Massachusetts recently, a Nobel prize-winning economist endorsed automobile tires. People respond to these ads, and sales increase. What useful information can there be in knowing that the manufacturer of your overnight bag paid a six-figure fee to feature a famous person in a television commercial? How can it be rational to choose your luggage on this basis?
Let me suggest an answer. [...] Hiring a celebrity to endorse your product is like posting a bond. The firm makes a substantial investment up front and reaps returns over a long period of time. A firm that expects to disappear in a year won't make such an investment. When I see a celebrity endorsement, I know that the firm has enough confidence in the quality of its product to expect to be around awhile.
(The full argument is in the text of The Armchair Economist on Scribd, although you've probably got the idea.)
However, none of this applies to your friend's profile picture appearing in an ad in your Facebook feed. No rational person would think that meant that the friend had been paid for the endorsement, so the ad doesn't falsely convey anything about the company's "resources." (All you really know is that the company paid some money to buy the ad — but, unlike a print ad that appears in a national magazine, you have no idea how much they spent to promote their brand on Facebook just because you happen to be seeing the promotion.) The valuable information conveyed in the ad is just what it seems — at least one of your friends thought the company or product was cool enough to 'like' it.
(This argument does leave an interesting case uncovered. What if a real recognizable celebrity 'liked' a page on Facebook, and that company paid for a flurry of ads in people's Facebook feeds prominently featuring the celebrity's likeness, truthfully claiming that the celebrity liked their product, but without paying the celebrity? I don't happen to know of any real-life case where a company found out that a celebrity actually used their product, and then started advertising the fact that their product was used by that celebrity without actually paying the celebrity, using the defense that all they were doing was stating a true fact. (Tell me in the comments if you know if that's happened.) However, Facebook seems to have ducked that issue for now, because virtually no actual celebrities have regular user profiles on Facebook; they have official fan pages, clearly demarcating the line between "them" and "us." So the sponsored ads are not likely to include a real celebrity's likeness any time soon.)
Fundamentally, if an 'ad' appears in your Facebook feed telling you that some of your friends 'liked' a page, all that ad is doing is stating a true fact, something that Facebook ought to be allowed to do under the First Amendment. I don't agree with Mitt Romney that "corporations are people too, my friend," but they do have First Amendment rights, which I would argue should include the right to tell you if friends of yours have publicly indicated that they like a product or service.
One currently pending lawsuit against Facebook makes much of the fact that Facebook's ads were displaying the profile pictures of minors, and that California law requires the permission of a minor's parents to use their likeness in an ad. But when that law was drafted, the authors probably had in mind the kind of traditional advertisements that raise the two concerns above — where (1) the minor and their family lose control over the dissemination of their image, and (2) the use of the likeness creates the false impression of a paid advertisement. It's not obvious that they would have considered the law to apply to a note in your Facebook feed telling you that your friend had liked a page. To the extent that the law could be interpreted to prohibit those kinds of notifications, that's arguably a violation of Facebook's First Amendment rights.
Of course, I've made this argument by assuming that the two reasons listed at the top are the only reasons that a company should be required to get people's permission before using their likeness in advertisements, and that if those reasons don't apply to Facebook 'likes,' then the permission requirement should not apply. But there may be other reasons besides those two, reasons that would also apply to ads listing Facebook 'likes,' and then that would invalidate the argument. But in the meantime, even though I don't use Facebook, if I did, I'd tentatively be fine with Facebook showing my profile picture in 'ads' to friends listing me as one of a group of people who had 'liked' a particular page.
On the other hand, if Facebook is really scanning your private messages for mentions of a particular page, and then automatically indicating on your profile that you 'like' that page, then yes, that means that any 'likes' acquired in that manner were not intended by the user to be public, and yes, that changes everything.
Another Bennett wall of text. Does anyone actually read these?
I'm surprised he didn't insert his whining about being rightfully pegged as a spammer.
They have paid for a product endorsement. They just haven't paid you.
But, joking aside, I believe it should be illegal to use my name or image to endorse a product without me being explicitly asked, and compensated. Anything else is a fraudulent use of my name.
Oh, and Mark Zuckerberg is a douchebag.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Aye, there's the rub.
WTF does willingly and knowingly mean? BS weasel words, in this context.
So, everybody likes a deal, &
few resist giving a false "Like"
in response to a freebie or big discount on something they want.
Therefore, many / most "Likes" are meaningless CfC's. IMO.
Stop using facebook. Now.
Don't use it if you don't like it
Or maybe "like" is an term with no formal meaning here and I'm just "liking" page because that's what we call "bookmarks" on this particular website. Or "favorites", or "starred", or whatever. I might even be "liking" the page because I want to remember what a bunch of douchebags the associated outfit have been to me or my family in the past and want to keep an eye on their marketing babble so that I can warn friends/family not to be caught out by it.
When I "favorite" a website in Internet Explorer, nobody thinks it implies I commercially endorse whatever organization's page it was. Why should a "like" infer that.
Of course in practice I firewall Facebook at the router.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
I can't wait for the trend of social networking to be over.
FB uses the tern "friend" to describe someone with whom you wish to have some level of communication, not someone who fits the conventional definition of "friend". The action of "like" is used in FB to indicate an acknowledgement of some post, not necessarily approval - I've seen people "like" posts about horrific events.
To further confuse things, companies will collect "inappropriate" likes. Some vendor vendor posts a picture of a cute kitten. People "like" the picture in the hopes that their friends will see it as well. That "like" in no way indicates that they actually recommend the (often completely unrelated) product. Sometimes it isn't even obvious to users that they are endorsing a commercial product.
This leads to a rather confusing landscape where people (who are not actually friends), are listed as "liking" a product that they do not in any way actually endorse. Whether advertising that "your friends like this product" is deceptive or not depends on whether you are using the conventional or FB definitions of "friends" and "like".
Personally I completely ignore this sort of endorsement because I understand what it really means (which is nothing). I make an effort to avoid "liking" any commercial links to avoid giving the impression that I endorse their products.
Every time I read law stuff here, I wish I weren't a lawyer.
Anyway, Facebook's "like" ads are not substantially different from the facts in White v. Samsung Electronics: it was “not important how the defendant has appropriated the plaintiff’s identity, but whether the defendant has done so.”
Bleep blorp blippity blop I don't know fuck all yet I must write a whole lot of stuff about the piffly fuck all I know about
because my name is benet haseltan and I don't believe in privacy or the fourth amendment. All hail face buck.
Sometimes I *like* something because I want to follow it. I might not like some of my local politicians, but I still like their pages just so I can follow what train wreck policy they might be putting to a vote that week. Liking it makes it conveniently show up on my newsfeed.
A lot of commercial "likes" are generated as opt-ins to contests and the like. For example, a local news channel will instruct its viewers to like a certain Facebook page to be eligible to win something. To me, the commercial value of a "like" would be low, I don't know of anybody who says "I will buy XXX instead of YYY because they have more likes on their Facebook page" (or more followers on Twitter, whatever). I don't ses the ROI on social media engagement, unless you are a marketing firm or consultancy charging by the project or hour.
It's rarely done because the celebrity, without a contract preventing such a thing, can publicly state that they do not endorse (or possibly even like) your product after you've spent significant money on the advertising.
However, here is a case where a company featured President Obama simply wearing their brand of coat. After only 3 days, the company was asked to remove it. No lawsuit, no laws broken. Just a reminder that the President did not and would not endorse their product. The company wasted their money.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/08/obama.billboard/
But only if 'not like' is an option. Fair is fair.
For pure B2C/B2B eCommerce - yes
For traditional B2C/B2B eCommerce - maybe
Everyone else, including all those brick and mortar businesses with facebook pages - No
Example? Steam vs Amazon.com vs Starbucks Singapore
PS: They are just liking it to get free Wifi
Facetweet socnet sheep really had no idea what was going on. It was just numbers scrolling by, right? Like the Matrix?
But now it's so blatant and dumbed down that they realize and freak out. Poor things really thought they were in control. It's a whole new reason not to let them behind the curtain: They'd be blinded ala Plato's cave.
But in cases where you willingly and knowingly 'liked' a page, Facebook and Google+ ought to be able to tell that to your friends in advertisements, without being sued for it."
So if I'm in a private thread on someone's non-public timeline, and I click "like" on some link my friend adds to his private dialogue with me on his timeline, which may be a political link or controversial or make sense only in that particular context, will what I did believing it private cease to be private without my knowledge or permission?
I don't think the parent understands how privacy really works on facebook. The way that you limit the audience of your comments and likes, is to ONLY comment and "like" things which already have a privacy scope that you approve of. For example if it says "Jeff's Friends" or "Jeff's Friends of Friends" or "Public" etc., you make an assumption prior to commenting or "liking" based on this information.
Is this implied contract being violated by facebook? Is it????
Since the day the marketing term "like" was introduced by the corporation in question, I have understood this "liking" to be -- when boiled down to the root -- work. With that in mind, why in the world would a person want to work, for free, for the benefit of a multi-billion dollar corporation? By not "liking" anything, am I missing out on something -- anything -- other than unpaid work?
Therefore, many / most "Likes" are meaningless CfC's. IMO.
Particularly meaningless without "DisLikes".
What does 100 "Likes" mean without knowing if there are 10 "DisLikes" or 1000 "DisLikes" that go with it?
I may tell my friends that I like a particular restaurant, but that doesn't mean that I want that restaurant to pay one of my friends to wear my picture around his neck and tell all of the rest of my friends that I like the restaurant.
You can't be on social media and still claim to be a privacy advocate. One or the other. No one understands the meanings of these words anymore. Social media is just that: SOCIAL. If you want privacy, then you should probably not be on facebook, you blithering idiot.
I'm all for more privacy for social networking users
What part of "social network" does Bennett not understand? If you use these damn "services" then you should expect them to be doing shit like this. I'm much more concerned that almost every site that I visit lately sends traffic to Facebook and lets them track information about me, even though I have never and will never use facebook.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Facebook is for hipsters.
All "likes" are sarcastic.
Seriously though; relabelling the "inform me of changes on this page" button to "like", doesn't mean I actually "like" it. It just means that you're mislabelling your functionality.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Problem solved.
I believe it should be illegal to use my name or image to endorse a product without me being explicitly asked, and compensated
Assuming you are a facebook user, you signed the contract - the EULA - that said Facebook can do this with out having to compensate you.
If you aren't then, I agree.
"Likes" do not represent something people like. So characterizing it as that in an ad is deceptive.
People "like" things for any number of reasons; maybe they were initially interested, but then decided the product was an utter piece of shit upon further inspection. Maybe they "liked" it as a joke, or ironically, or because it was stupid or funny or ridiculous in some way, or accidentally.
To take a "like" out of any sort of context, and then with a serious face say "So and so likes X. You should buy it!" takes a serious lack of appreciation for the real world. If its not illegal it should be.
Why do you defend it?
[nt]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If "like" does not mean an endorsement, what does it mean? Why would you "like" anything if not to tell your friends that you did and that you want them to do likewise? To me it is pretty clear that "like" is an explicit endorsement. The argument about what exactly it is I am endorsing concerns the target of the action, not the action itself. I really can not see how anybody could mistake it for "acknowledge" or "bookmark".
Just because I like somebody doesn't mean I want to go to bed with them.
I can think of a reason why this doesn't work.... saying that they have "liked" something contains the implicit assumption that they actually like it....that is...they hit like honestly. I can see why that might be a valid assumption if you are ignoring the details but, the simple fact is, facebook doesn't have a dislike button.
In fact, I personally "liked" Obama's facebook page. Why? Is it because I like him? No. I didn't even vote for him the first time around. I also have "liked" a page by the "Reagan Coalition", is it because I like them? No, not at all.
In both of these cases, I hit "like" because I wanted to keep tabs on them, and I wanted to discuss/argue with/troll other people who actually do like these things. Facebook has no "I don't really like this but I want to be included in the discussion" button.
anyone who has read my posts here knows I don't favor any form of gun control at all. I don't even see why its needed. Yet, I "like" one of the groups that discusses gun control...because I want to be part of the discussion! Believe me, not a single member of that group has any illusions that I "like" what they are trying to do.
So, I agree after a fashion. I would have no issue with this "your friends like..." advertising if there was any reason to actually expect that clicking "like" actually had some meaning that was relevant to the concept it invokes. The simple fact is, this is not true at all.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Are facebook users aware that anything that they say (or like) can and will be used against them, even if they said/liked it before any warning was given?
Private data is semi-private. Don't want your name to be associated to something, don't use social media. Remember the services own the content, not you.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://www.privacysos.org/node/1293
If Facebook -- or anybody else -- wants to use my image or anything else I do to make money, then I want a piece of the action. And no, just letting me use the site isn't a big enough piece.
(Sure, slashdot is probably making a tiny amount off of the content I contribute, but in this case giving me access to the site is a big enough piece.)
But in cases where you willingly and knowingly 'liked' a page, Facebook and Google+ ought to be able to tell that to your friends in advertisements, without being sued for it.
So if I go to Google and find a query that links to my web site, should I be able to use the Google logo in a commercial saying, "As recommended by Google"? If there's a Facebook page that links to my site, should I be able to use their logo?
Commercial endorsement rights cost money.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
In order to comment on the wall of the company's page, you need to like it.
I've liked many pages just so I could tell the company (or politician) how they can best sod off.
We have a "Dislike" button. It does NOTHING. Because when I choose to share my opinion, IT WON'T FIT ON A FREAKIN' BUTTON.
I have a wall. It's very tall and very thick, and made of stone. Post on it all you like, if you can get across the moat. Watch out for the archers. They will poke you.
I'd invite you to join, but IT'S AN ANTISOCIAL NETWORK. DUH.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
I can summarize all that verbiage in one phrase: "The only way to win is not to play." Remember this when you accept something for free (the scariest words in English are - "it's free!"), work for a corporation for free (providing reviews, likes, etc), and so on. You're playing their game by their rules.
On Facebook "liking" some entity is the only way to really follow posts made by that thing. So, no. I may want to hear what my enemy has to say. On facebook, to "follow" them, I have to "like" them. It's just a stupid word that poorly describes the functionality.
Fuck Facebook.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Does this kid pay /. to have his blog entries posted here?
Billions if not trillions of likes have been bought or exchanged, if not clicked to receive a coupon or some other incentive or reward. So no, they are definitely not the same nor in the same ballpark as endorsements. They are 100% meaningless.
See title.
As long as the ability to 'dislike' is also available.
Honestly, I am surprised how far we have gotten into the 21st century without crowd funded negative publicity campaigns. I think the idea is simple and would be easily understood by the masses. Certain corporate entity screwing you as a consumer? Check to see if someone is running a negative publicity campaign on 'crowdvertisement.com' (-not currently registered at the time of my post) and pledge 10 dollars toward some goal of negative advertising. Then you really are voting with your wallet.
Ask yourself if there has been times you felt screwed financially by some large corporate entity. How many others are there like you? What recourse currently exists for you as a group? If you could find each other and pool your resources, you could collectively cost the company FAR more than they cost you individually... and maybe even help them change their practices.
Intelligently crafted negative publicity would be far more cost effective per dollar than voting for the competitor with your wallet . This is because you are potentially helping/teaching/educating others to vote with their wallets.
-mcw
With no "dislike" button it's clear that FB is a vanity world for attention-whoring women
Facebook is very useful for me, because a person's priorities are revealed
by whether they use "time sinks" like Facebook.
I am the head of HR for a Fortune 500. I post anonymously to avoid repercussions
from some litigious fool who would waste the resources of my company by initiating
legal action after reading what I wrote.
If a prospective employee uses Facebook I make sure they are not hired.
And if an employee begins using Facebook we find another "official" reason to "let them go".
This is what my bosses want, and they didn't get to be in high level management by making bad
decisions.
Facebook is for time-wasters. Companies which have their shit together don't
want those types on the payroll.
Whine about it all you want, this is the real world and those with the gold make the rules.
a bunch of fags are jealous of facebook
you know when you have billions of dollars, the parasites come out of the dark - all kinds of jealous, dumb, buzzword loving, retarded, "think of the children", "think of my cause which you should give a shit about!" lower than low scum begin to file lawsuits because they literally could never ever invent something themselves or even conceive any original thought. So what do they do? they sue others to make themselves relevant.
I can only hope the USA and the world evolves into a true technocracy - even with Hitlerish standards. Those who cannot form an original thought and provide something useful to the technological advancement of the world should be put in a fucking gas chamber and killed. Any person who can not form an original thought, and are just parasites, suing companies because they think their cause is important, should be gassed and killed - because they do not provide any advancement to the culture (as facebook has) The people and the state will soon recognize this and hopefully lynchmob anyone gaming the system for a lawyer or self serving payoff.
*disclaimer I do not use or have a facebook acount
Yes, they would own the copyright, but using it in any meaningful way would require them to get me to sign a model release form authorizing them to use my image. Of course, Facebook's TOS probably has text along the lines of "you consent to your image being used by any company we partner with for any purpose we decide" to cover the model release case. Just like they likely have text forcing you to grant them a worldwide right to your photos with the option to sell rights to whatever third parties they decide to.
The decision for the courts would be: Is a simple TOS enough for a model release? What if they use a photo of someone not on Facebook? Say my wife, who is on Facebook, posts a photo of me - not on Facebook - and a company decides to use it for their ads. Obviously, I've never agreed to Facebook's TOS so I didn't "sign the model release." It just seems too risky, legally, for a company to grab a Facebook-posted image and assume that the Facebook TOS covers their rear.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
So I was never ever stupid enough to have anything to do with facebook. I feel bad for the people they are screwing, a little, and I do really hope they have success in court and take a big chunk out just on general principles, but I am really not affected here.
However, I was stupid enough to sign up for gmail once upon a time. And I even uploaded a little picture that was supposedly ONLY to display to people that I have approved on that chat list.
Fast forward a little, google buys youtube, and gets this G+ itch. So I have a youtube account and the email address given to youtube for recovery was my gmail account. Without a by-your-leave I suddenly find the two accounts have been merged, and this picture is being displayed on youtube, as well as G+ (where I have NEVER created any account or given any permission for the use of my name, likeness, or personal information in any way shape or form!)
If these suits against facebook are getting traction why not a suit against google? I am sure I am not the only person they have done this too, in fact it seems certain that some of them even live in Europe, where privacy protection laws are a bit stronger.
This is truly scummy behavior and while it would certainly be great to see either of these corporations hit with a fine big enough to change their behavior, that does not seem very likely. The real solution would be good old fashioned shunning - turn your back on these companies and any others that do this. Too bad our population has been so thoroughly conditioned at this point to feel helpless and bitch about it on facebook instead of closing your account and blocking the bastards at the router.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Suppose I say publicly that I like product X and think it's a good buy. I'm not under contract with the manufacturer to do ads for them. They aren't paying me to endorse their product. I haven't had any contact with them at all. Is the manufacturer entitled to go and quote me, using my name and my statements in their advertisements, without getting my agreement to let them do so first? As far as I know, they don't. It has nothing to do with anything I said. It has to do with them simply not having a right to use my likeness and my words for their own commercial gain without having my permission to do so first (this being separate from news reporting and the like where fair-use and similar rights would apply). Simply saying I like their product doesn't constitute an agreement to appear in their advertisements. So why should it be any different in a social network? I still haven't agreed to appear in that company's advertising materials. FB/G+ would be entitled to say I'd "liked"/"+1'd" a page if I did so publicly, but that would be covered under my agreement with them which doesn't extend to other companies.
I don't see it as any different from any other endorsement of any other product in any other setting. This shouldn't require looking any further than the already-settled law governing when companies can use your endorsement of their product in their marketing material.
people dont use the "Like" to mean i like that. people have "Like" 'd people dying or getting injured.
commenting on something or "Like"-ing it is not the same as endorsing the product, idea, object, etc.
that being said no one is forced to use facebook, so as long as they are clear about what they do (which they arent) then I think they should be able to use "Likes" in this way. Maybe the best solution is to change "Like" to "Acknowledge"
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
I would like to take this opportunity to note that my 2014 New Years resolution was completed successfully by deleting Facebook (after 10 years) in 2013.
And humbly submit this page reasons why many people do: http://fulldecent.blogspot.com/2013/12/ten-things-you-can-only-do-without.html
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
I don't agree with Mitt Romney that "corporations are people too, my friend," but they do have First Amendment rights
That means you do agree with him, since you're saying that corporations have constitutional rights - It reads "We the people" not "We the people and acceptable business structures".
Considering that uploading to FB grants them a transferable and royalty free worldwide licence, the amount of control the end user has over their likeness or any other content they upload is very limited indeed.
With that in mind, FB can use your content in any way it pleases unless (and perhaps not even then) you delete the content. In the instance of the class action suit, California considered it an endorsement (or would have, if FB didn't settle). Other states or countries might not. What is to stop them expanding the scheme across the entire site in those jurisdictions?
Is it a commercial endorsement? I would say probably yes. The interesting question under the surface would then be, considering that companies try and persuade users into "liking" on a frequent basis, are they guilty of profiting from an unfairly acquired endorsement?
Did anyone bother to read the ToS? There is not much private about these social network sites. If you read what you're getting into you wouldn't go anywhere near the place to begin with. How can someone sue someone else over something they willing agreed to by creating an account on the site? You would have to be irrepressibly stupid, or have the dumbest lawyer(s) on the planet!
But these are -NOT- my favorite places... most of them are for work for crying out loud!
Call them bookmarks, call them custom waypoints, call them -anything- but fucking "favorites"
"if it's true that Facebook has been silently marking users as publicly 'liking' a page because they mentioned the page in a private message"
So some guy who's a closet "X" mentions a page about "X" in a PM to a friend (whom he trusts). Facebook notes this, and marks him as liking "X" to the whole friends list, including many old-fashioned relatives etc.
Yeah, sounds like a really good idea.
wait wait wait...
scroll up a few posts... someone posted
But, joking aside, I believe it should be illegal to use my name or image to endorse a product without me being explicitly asked, and compensated.
so some user was explicitly asked to give a like AND there actually was some form of compensation.
bickerdyke
The lawsuit was idiotic and infringed on freedom of speech. If you want YOUR product on Facebook just put the damed thing on it. Fricken control freaks, get out of the press!!
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. FUCK THAT.
Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe then any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."
-- Banksy
The only way to win this game is to not play. If you've already got a Facebook account then you've already lost.
Facebook does what it does. Just say no to liking commercial products.
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
A page on facebook shares a particular piece of content. A user then likes that particular piece of content. Facebook then associates that user as "liking" the page whenever that page pays for a sponsored advertisement.
It's simply sleazy. I hope facebook loses.
Aside from that, when I tell someone I like something, I appreciate it if they can avoid telling *everyone* they see that I like that thing, whatever it is.
Facebook is going to continue to try to force revenue to justify their absurd valuation. Users will stick around, but it's not going to be some magic playground for advertisers, where users stare at ads adoringly, clicking on them, all day long.