Representative action against Meta for unauthorized use of names and photographs in advertising

The Corporation emphasizes that it denies these allegations and encourages its users to request exclusion from the representative class action within 45 days of publication of this notice.

The lawsuit was filed by Keren Aviv on behalf of a group of Facebook users from Israel, the plaintiffs accuse Meta Corporation of violation of privacy, unjust enrichment, and the presence of unfair terms in the user agreement.

The plaintiffs’ class members are all registered users of the social network Facebook operated by the defendant whose name, nickname or photograph was used by Meta to promote advertising of third parties without the informed consent of those users, beginning on July 14, 2018.

As part of the representative action, users are asking Meta to pay compensation, return profits, prohibit the company from using a person’s name, photo or pseudonym to distribute and promote advertising without their informed consent, and rescind any provisions in the user agreement that allow the use of this data.

Apparently, we are talking about a widespread tactic in the past for promoting various businesses and pages, when users of the social network Facebook saw ads in their feed with the names and photographs of people they followed, with statements that these people “liked” the page of a particular business or product being promoted. As a rule, these statements were not true, and each user saw his own set of “friends” among those advertising the page.