Who owns your Facebook page? New blow to social network site as it pays out $10MILLION to just five users for putting adverts in their Timelines

 

• Lawsuit brought by five Facebook users in California who charge that they were misled by the company’s terms of use

• ‘Sponsored stories’ seen by users when a friend ‘likes’ a product or place

• Seen as more turmoil for Facebook, which has struggled since its botched initial public offering last month

Facebook has agreed to dish out a whopping $10million to charity to settle a lawsuit that accused the site of violating users’ rights to control the use of their own names, photos and likenesses, according to court documents made public this weekend.

The lawsuit, brought by five Facebook members in California, alleged that the social networking site violated state law by publicizing users’ ‘likes’ of certain advertisers on its ‘sponsored stories’ feature without paying them or giving them a way to opt out, the documents said.

The blockbuster settlement could potentially allow millions of other Facebook users to pursue similar legal action.

A ‘sponsored story’ is an advertisement that appears on a user’s Facebook page and generally consists of another friend’s name, picture and an assertion that the person ‘likes’ the advertiser.

The lawsuit charges that Facebook’s terms of use ‘mislead its users into believing that they can prohibit the use of their name and profile picture in advertisements.’

The ads were started in early 2011. The settlement, which was reached last month but made public this weekend, puts a question mark over a major source of ad revenue for the company.

Facebook declined to comment on Saturday.

 Source online 2012:0618 [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160788/Facebook-fork-10million-charity-lawsuit-sponsored-stories-ads.html]