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Apartment In US Asks Tenants To 'Like' Facebook Page Or Face Action (business-standard.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the do-it-or-face-the-consequences dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Business Standard: An apartment building in Salt Lake City has told tenants living in the complex to "like" its Facebook page or they will be in breach of their lease. Tenants of the City Park Apartments said they found a "Facebook addendum" taped to their doors last weekend, asking them to "like" the City Park Apartments Facebook page. The contract says that if tenants do not specifically "friend" City Park Apartments on Facebook within five days, they will be found in breach of the rental agreement. In addition, the contract includes a release allowing the business to post pictures of tenants and their visitors on the Facebook page. Currently, the apartment building has a 1.1 star rating on its Facebook page.

11 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Please report this. by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

    IIRC, that's a violation of Facebook's Terms of Service. Please report it to Facebook, and if enough people corroborate the report, the business in question won't have a page anymore.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    1. Re: Please report this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Slashdot is a little late on this, the apartment's facebook page has been taken offline already.

    2. Re: Please report this. by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Informative

      An unauthorized person did this

      That's not what the retraction says, it says that "management" circulated the new agreement and then goes on to explain what they intended by circulating it. That doesn't sound unauthorized.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    3. Re:Please report this. by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are cases where the law extends those rights elsewhere.
      For example, in California, a landlord cannot evict someone for exercising free speech.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    4. Re: Please report this. by onepoint · · Score: 4, Informative

      As a Realtor, I would like to dispute your statement, from the perspective of apartment housing, not condo housing. Most property managers think they are above the law, and in most cases they get away with it. Don't forget, as long as they don't violate Fair Housing acts or any other housing related laws, they can act as a representative of the owner not to renew your lease or make your increase the highest in the development.

      Now, good owners are on top of the property managers to stop the bullshit, and some most are not. I deal with a lot of apartment building property managers and I will say, in general, they are dumb and need an ethics course. As a Realtor, if you take enough legal classes and have a lawyer to ask questions too, you save your clients butts more than once.

      Condo property managers are just horrible. very few know the rules and then they have to deal with board members that make life a living hell.

      --
      if you see me, smile and say hello.
    5. Re: Please report this. by jsh1972 · · Score: 5, Informative

      DRM rootkit, removal of "other OS" option from ps3 after some people had bought it specifically for that reason, don't really know of anything recent that compares to those two but then again i haven't been watching for anything, I pretty much auto ignore anything I see with Sony in the name now.

  2. See original source by AdamThor · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://www.ksl.com/?sid=39954...

    Article references original source...

    --
    -- "Oh. This guy again."
  3. Retracted.... no story here by Subgenius · · Score: 2, Informative

    This has been retracted by the apartment company.

    https://www.facebook.com/mande...

    --
    Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
  4. Gone, but not forgotten! by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's a cache if anyone is interested. The official page is gone now, no telling if they pulled it or FB did. Gawker has more info, including part of the new clause that says “to not post on any public forum or page negative comments relating to the community.” While it may not be strictly illegal, it would be found discriminatory against those who don't have a Facebook account, internet access, etc. The quoted lawyer mentions this; it might violate other laws too; but it would be trivial to show in court that this is discriminatory against the elderly etc who don't use computers, have a Facebook account, etc. It's not technically a "free speech" issue, since it's not a Government agency forcing this..and at this time the only "free speech" restrictions are the Government, a private corp can do whatever it wants inside it's contractual agreements. Utah, and Salt Lake, might have additional "tenet laws" that might restrict them.

    However, IANAL

  5. Re:No way will this stand by mishehu · · Score: 3, Informative

    You're confusing a lease agreement with a ToS. I've rented in many places in the USA, and no, the landlords can't just unilaterally change terms partway through the term of a lease. They can change terms upon lease renewal, since that would be a new term.

  6. Typical Utah by utahjazz · · Score: 3, Informative

    Reminds me of a similar story. In Provo, in order to house BYU students, an apartment complex must be "BYU approved". They only approve the whole building, not individual units, so basically, every building in Provo is BYU approved, because otherwise they'd be at a serious disadvantage getting tennants. One of the requirements of being "BYU approved" is that the Honor Code staff can inspect your apartment at any time for violations.

    So, a guy who is not a student at BYU, comes home one day to find a picture he had on his wall, of a girl wearing a bikini, had been taken down. The morality police at BYU were unapologetic. He violated their code, in their town.

    Imagine people with that mentality. They wouldn't think twice about requiring you like them on Facebook.