Fraley vs Facebook - A lawsuit against FB by it's users

Official logo of Facebook. Photo by: Facebook

As usual as I was searching and reading international famous news networks today, I caught up on a shocking but an interesting news feed about our everyday life partner "Facebook". I got hooked up myself at this news so I started to search the further details about this news about Facebook through different international news networks of different countries. This news mentions about a class action lawsuit against "Facebook" which claimed that Facebook unlawfully used class Members names, profile pictures, photographs, likenesses & identities to advertise or sell products and the services through "Sponsored Stories", without obtaining class members or it's user's consent. However  the famous social media Facebook denies any such wrongdoing or mis-using the intellectual properties of it;s users. The case dates back to 2011, when Facebook was sued over "Sponsored Stories" which turned users' "likes" into advertisements that appeared on the social network's newsfeed. The program, introduced at January of 2011 Jan, let advertisers take word of mouth recommendations and promote them. The lawsuit, however, said Facebook "improperly uses the names, photographs, likenesses, and identities of plaintiffs to generate substantial profits for Facebook. The social media giant has sent out legal notices about a class action brought against it in California after profile photos and names were used without consent in its Sponsored Stories feature. Some of my friends on other social networks such as google plus reported me that they started to receive email notices about how they can cash in on the social network's $20 million "Sponsored Stories" settlement this weekend. The final approval hearing for the settlement is on 28th of June and if the court founds that Facebook is guilty Facebook may have to pay up to $10 to each of its users whose personal details were used without permission to sell advertising. Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004, founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. According to Facebook, as of September 2012 it  has over one billion active users worldwide.