Friday, November 09, 2007

Facebook to fight The Law?

According to the NYTimes and a Michigan State law professor, it's possible that the recently announced advertising method may be illegal in New York. Showing users pictures of their friends who liked advertiser's products conflicts with a 100 year old New York law:

any person whose name, portrait, picture, or voice is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without the written consent first obtained

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Either Facebook will have to add a paragraph to the terms of service or they'll have to spend some of that Microsoft money in Albany.

1 comment:

RRD said...

I'm guessing that they will just change their TOS (Terms of Service) such that they are allowed to users pictures with the advertisements. I highly doubt anyone will even notice the change in TOS...when was the last time you know of that a site changed its TOS? It was probably pretty recent but you don't know about it! ;)

If I were Facebook though, I would have an opt-out feature for picture s associated with ads. Some users could be really mad.