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November 9, 2007
Law Prof: New Facebook Ad System May Be Illegal
Facebook's new ad system recognizes something the law's been saying about corporations for well over a century: They're people, too.
Now they can have their own Facebook pages:
"Just like a Facebook user, businesses can start with a blank canvas and add all the information and content they want, including photos, videos, music and Facebook Platform applications."
You can be their fan and can "act as a trusted referral" for Blockbuster, CBS, Chase, The Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft, Sony Pictures Television and Verizon Wireless. The "trusted referal" bit means that if you like something and say so on Facebook, your picture might end up in an ad from one of those companies. After all, you're a fan!
The Facebook press release quotes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who tells us "For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation."
Thank goodness! Because I know that when I'm sitting around my living room with my friends, comparing the relative merits of cellular providers, I frequently cry aloud "Damnit! Where's a flack from Verizon when you need one!?" because we all desperately wish we could include one in our little conversation.
Anyhow ... moving on to the headline:
William McGeveran is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis, Minnesota and he has a blog in which he asserts:
"'New York's well-known [privacy] statute creates both a misdemeanor and a civil cause of action for '[a]ny 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.''"
"I don't see how broad general consent to share one's information translates into the specific written consent necessary for advertisers to use one's name (and often picture) under this law. And the introduction of Facebook's sales pitch about the program to advertisers leaves little doubt that individual users' identities will be appropriated for the benefit of Facebook and advertisers alike ..."
Saul Hansell at the New York Times blogged about the issue, too, provoking a response from Facebook:
"Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer of Facebook, called to present a number of reasons why he thinks this law doesn't apply to the new Social Ads. He said Mr. McGeveran's interpretation of the law was too broad.
"Mr. Kelly said the advertisements are simply a 'representation' of the action users have taken: choosing to link themselves to a product. He added that in many states, consenting to something online is now seen as the equivalent of written consent.
"And he argued that it would be difficult for someone used in one of these ads to object because that person had already chosen to publicly identify themselves with the brand doing the advertising."
Which seems like an awesome reason to avoid the mistake Facebook makes when it acts as if a corporate profile is a real person you can be buddies with.
If nothing else, think of your own brand. Do you really want to be associated with random corporate looniness?
I was a big fan of flickr and del.icio.us not even a year ago ... but their corporate parent has a human rights problem. If you'd asked me what the biggest problem I had with flickr prior to realizing what its parent was up to, I would have said "Maybe it'll fold and my pictures will be stranded or deleted." It didn't occur to me to think that maybe its parent would do something so ethically repulsive that I couldn't, in good conscience, hand over $20 a year along with my tacit endorsement any longer.
And, as always, there's the "big silo of information about you floating around in the cloud" issue, as noted by Valleywag:
"Facebook? Invading people's privacy? Who'd believe that? It's not like there have been reports of Facebook employees systematically abusing user photos, tracking user activity for dating purposes, facing reprimand from product managers over privacy abuse, or even allegedly logging into user profiles and uploading obscene images in place of profile photos."
Click through for a link smorgasbord.
Already het up enough that you don't need any further heat?
Tags: advertising, facebook, privacy, social networking
Posted by mhall at 5:11 PM | Add Comment
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