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A putative class action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook, Inc. just one month after Facebook announced that an erroneous formula had caused it to inflate a key video metric for the past two years.

Facebook admitted the error in a September 23, 2016 post on the Facebook business page.  The metric at issue—the average…

Yesterday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) and the Center for Digital Democracy (“CDD”) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against WhatsApp, Inc. According to the complaint, WhatsApp posted an entry on its company blog on August 25, 2016 announcing an update to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The updated Privacy…

Last week, Pinterest updated its Acceptable Use Policy, which governs its policies for conducting a contest and sweepstakes. Pinterest policy previously:

  • Prohibited brands from running a sweepstakes where each Pin, board, like, or follow represents an entry;
  • Prohibited brands from requiring entrants to Pin from a selection; or
  • Prohibited brands from requiring a minimum number

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The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) and the BBB are pleased to announce the launch of its second Public Service Campaign regarding children’s online safety.  CARU’s first campaign titled, “Do you know where your children are…on the Internet?” was broadcasted on the major network and cable channels, received thousands of views on social media and…

On October 30, 2015, Facebook, Inc. posted an important win in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a non-precedential decision, the court upheld the federal district court’s dismissal of a complaint filed by a proposed class of minor Facebook users. The plaintiffs alleged that Facebook’s terms of use—specifically, a provision granting Facebook the right to use the plaintiffs’ names and likenesses—as applied to the proposed class, was void under California law. By ruling for Facebook, the Ninth Circuit’s stance in this case reminds us that courts will treat online terms and conditions as binding agreements between website owners and its users, and resolve disputes falling within such terms’ governance using traditional contract law principles.
Continue Reading Facebook Posts Important Advertising Law Win

This post was written by John Feldman, Keri Bruce and Sara Shahmiri.

After the FTC revised its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials (the “Guides”) in 2009, it followed up with a set of frequently asked questions entitled “What People Are Asking” (the “FAQs”) to address questions that were on advertisers’ minds.  More…

A recent district court case reminds companies and brand owners to establish clear guidelines or contractual rights with respect to brand-related social media pages’ administration and ownership.

Plaintiff Stacey Mattocks independently ran an un-official Facebook fan page which focused on the TV show the “Game”. After Black Entertainment Television network (BET) acquired rights to the TV show, it hired Mattocks to promote and grow the brand on the page and provided exclusive content and IP to Mattocks. During Mattocks’ employment, the number of page “likes” grew from 2 million to 6 million. Mattocks had granted BET full access to the page to update content but later, during a dispute involving Mattocks’ terms of employment, Mattocks demoted BET’s ability to access the page without her approval and claimed ownership of the page. BET approached the social media platform to regain control and Mattocks filed suit for various claims against BET (such as breach of contract and tortious interference with contract).

While social media platforms offer certain protections to companies and some include official or verification procedures, this kind of litigation and expense could have been avoided with more careful planning with respect to allocation of rights and ownership up front.
Continue Reading Brand Owners: Do You Know Your Social Media Ownership Rights?

A recent Facebook Platform Policy change may affect the way many promotions are run on Facebook. The change, effective November 5, 2014, prohibits Facebook Page owners from requiring a user to “like” their Page in order to access content, such as entry into a contest or sweepstakes, via a Facebook application (“App”). Advertisers often use this technique, known as “like-gating,” as a way to increase the amount of likes their Pages receive.

Facebook believes that a prohibition on like-gating will benefit both advertisers and consumers. In announcing the change, Facebook stated in a blog post: “[T]o ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives.”

A like can be valuable to an advertiser, regardless of whether it is generated organically or artificially. When a user likes a Facebook Page, the like may appear on the user’s Timeline, stories from the Page may show up on the user’s news feeds, and users may also appear in advertisements for that Page.
Continue Reading But I Thought They Really Liked Me! Facebook’s Prohibition on Like-Gating Apps

Last month, Snapchat reached a settlement with the Maryland Attorney General over alleged deceptive trade practices regarding Snapchat’s marketing claims that user “snaps” disappear forever. In addition, the Attorney General alleged that Snapchat had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This settlement follows a similar settlement between Snapchat and the Federal Trade Commission, which we reported on previously.

After announcing the settlement, Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said that “despite Snapchat’s marketing claims to the contrary, no company can fully prevent content you send to someone else from being copied, shared or posted online[.]” Attorney General Gansler went on to state that companies operating online or through mobile devices have a responsibility to safeguard user privacy and to be transparent about the information they collect. According to Attorney General Gansler, Snapchat misrepresented to consumers that pictures and video messages sent using the Snapchat mobile application are only viewable temporarily, when in fact they can be captured by the recipient for future viewing or circulation. As a result of these representations, some Snapchat mobile application users may have sent pictures or video messages they would not have sent were these risks adequately disclosed. The Attorney General further alleged that Snapchat secretly collected information from users’ contact lists without their consent, and that Snapchat failed to comply with COPPA by knowingly collecting the personal information of children under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent.
Continue Reading Snapchat Settlement with MD AG Marks Latest State-Level Privacy Enforcement Action