The agreement highlights the risks social media companies face as they navigate privacy and disclosure norms while providing consumer entertainment online. The settlement, a consent decree, reflects neither an admission or denial of the charges by the defendants.

The FTC said Playdom, now a Walt Disney Co. unit, and former executive Howard Marks disclosed information on hundreds of thousands of children between 2006 and 2010 as they operated 20 “virtual world” websites where users could access online games and other activities.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

The agreement highlights the risks social media companies face as they navigate privacy and disclosure norms while providing consumer entertainment online. The settlement, a consent decree, reflects neither an admission or denial of the charges by the defendants.

The FTC said Playdom, now a Walt Disney Co. unit, and former executive Howard Marks disclosed information on hundreds of thousands of children between 2006 and 2010 as they operated 20 “virtual world” websites where users could access online games and other activities.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users’ computers. Enactment awaits action by member countries.
Now, Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can’t agree on the law’s meaning. Is it sufficient if users agree to cookies when setting up Web browsers? Is an industry-backed plan acceptable that would let users see—and opt out of—data collected about them? Must placing cookies on a machine depend on the user checking a box each time?

The answers are mired in bickering.
“We’re now in a sort of no man’s land,” says Bridget Treacy, head of the U.K. privacy practice at law firm Hunton & Williams LLP.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Little more than a month after the bungled launch of Buzz and the company has already accumulated quite a pile of complaints over breaches in consumer privacy that went along with it.

In February, the Electronic Privacy Information Center asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Buzz, claiming it violates federal consumer protection law.

A few weeks later, outgoing FTC commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour publicly decried Buzz’s rollout as “irresponsible” and accused Google of attempting to “stretch the privacy envelope.”

Now, a group of eleven U.S. lawmakers from the House Energy and Commerce Committee is calling upon the FTC to investigate Buzz as well.

“We are writing to express our concern over claims that Google’s ‘Google Buzz’ social networking tool breaches online consumer privacy and trust,” the group said in a letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “Due to the high number of individuals whose online privacy is affected by tools like this–either directly or indirectly–we feel that these claims warrant the commission’s review of Google’s public disclosure of personal information of consumers through Google Buzz.”

The letter continues by suggesting the FTC ask the following four questions to Google:

1. How will Google revise the Gmail privacy policy, notify consumers, and obtain consent for this change in the company’s privacy practices?
2. Since Google Buzz was launched on Feb. 9, 2010, how many consumers are deactivated or opted out of the Google Buzz services?
3. To what extent does Google use the consumer information collected through Buzz and other Google services for the purposes of delivering online advertising?
4. If the Commission approves Google’s acquisition of AdMob, to what extent will the combined entity use the consumer information collected through other Google products and services for the purposes of delivering advertising?

The answers to these questions would, I’m sure, be quite telling. Not that Google (GOOG) is particularly interested in answering them. Why would the company when it seems so confident that it has already resolved the issues in question?

Said a Google spokesperson: “User choice and transparency are top of mind for us. When we realized that we had unintentionally made users unhappy, we worked quickly to make immediate changes.”

[Image credit: Asaf Hanuka, Tropical Toxic]

“EPIC urges the Commission to investigate Google, determine the extent of the harm to consumer privacy and safety,” EPIC said in its complaint. “[And it asks that the Commission] require Google to provide Gmail users with opt-in consent to the Google Buzz service, require Google to give Gmail users meaningful control over personal information, require Google to provide notice to and request consent from Gmail users before making material changes to their privacy policy in the future, and seek appropriate injunctive and compensatory relief.”

Another embarrassing blow for Google (GOOG), which has spent the better part of a week being pilloried for its unfortunate misstep. Responding to EPIC’s complaint, Google again stressed its efforts to improve Buzz and, somewhat ironically, thanked the group for airing its concerns.

“We designed Buzz to make it easy for users to connect with other people and have conversations about the things that interest them,” the company said. “Buzz was launched only a week ago. We’ve already made a few changes based on user feedback, and we have more improvements in the works. We look forward to hearing more suggestions and will continue to improve the Buzz experience with user transparency and control top of mind. We also welcome dialogue with EPIC and appreciate hearing directly from them about their concerns. Our door is always open to organizations with suggestions about our products and services.”

Evidently, Buzz is a work in progress to which all are free to contribute–even if they do so in the form of an FTC complaint.

“Although the United States believes the parties have approached this effort in good faith and the amended settlement agreement is more circumscribed in its sweep than the original proposed settlement, the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement,” the DOJ said in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“It is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation,” the report continues. “Under the [revised proposal], Google would remain the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats. Google also would have the exclusive ability to exploit unclaimed works–including so-called ‘orphan works’–without risk of liability.”

And then there was this:

Google’s exclusive access to millions and millions of books may well benefit Google’s existing online search business. Google already holds a relatively dominant market share in that market. That dominance may be further entrenched by its exclusive access to content through the ASA. Content that can be discovered by only one search engine offers that search engine at least some protection from competition. This outcome has not been achieved by a technological advance in search or by operation of normal market forces; rather, it is the direct product of scanning millions of books without the copyright holders’ consent.

In other words, the amended deal continues to give Google (GOOG) significant anticompetitive advantages and rewards the company for scanning books in violation of copyright protections. And while the Justice Department did not go so far as to explicitly urge rejection of the deal, it recommended that parties to the settlement make further changes before the Feb. 18 fairness hearing at which it is to be reviewed.

Another setback for Google, or as Gary Reback–a Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer who represents Microsoft (MSFT) and the Open Book Alliance, a coalition opposed to the settlement–said, the filing is a “profound embarrassment–bordering on an outright humiliation” for the search company.

• News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch tried to lower expectations that his Fox broadcast network would hire Conan O’Brien.
• Murdoch hinted that his book publishing unit is in line to get a new deal on e-books from Amazon, just as Macmillan has demanded (as will other publishers).

On the second point, here’s my on-the-fly transcription and paraphrasing of Murdoch’s comments about Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL) and e-book pricing. It’s one of the most candid descriptions you’ll hear from a top executive about Big Media’s reluctance to embrace digital distribution at the expense of its existing system and revenue:

“We don’t like the Amazon model of $9.99….We think it really devalues books and hurts all the retailers of hardcover books. We’re not against electronic books; on the contrary, we like them very much” because they cost us less to distribute, “but we want some room to maneuver.” The Apple deal…“does allow some flexibility and higher prices” though e-books will still be lower than print versions. And now Amazon is willing to sit down with us again and renegotiate.

UPDATE: Here’s a more complete transcript from Seeking Alpha:

We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99. They don’t pay us that. They pay us the full wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge. We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books. We are not against [inaudible] books. On the contrary we like them very much indeed. It is low cost to us and so on. But we want some room to maneuver in it. Amazon, sorry Apple in its agreement with us which has not been disclosed in detail does allow for a variety of slightly higher prices.

There will be prices very much less than the printed copies of books but still will not be fixed in a way that Amazon has been doing it. It appears that Amazon is now ready to sit down with us again and renegotiate pricing.

Again, it’s impossible to stress how scarring the music labels’ experience has been for Big Media. And they’re determined not to repeat the experience. Their takeaway, though, seems to be that they can stave off digital distribution by keeping prices high and inventory relatively scarce. Hard to believe consumers are going to go for that.

Earlier

A first glimpse at News Corp.’s fourth-quarter earnings (which, due to the company’s weird fiscal calendar, is technically the company’s Q2 for 2010): Pretty good. And much better than a year ago (thankfully). After factoring out one-time charges, the company posted earnings of 25 cents on revenue of $8.7 billion.

The Street was looking for earnings of 20 cents on revenue of $8.23 billion, and analysts were also hoping the company would boost its earnings forecast, due in part to a bump from the ginormous success of “Avatar.” No word on guidance in the earnings release, though.

I’ll pick through the release for other worthwhile nuggets for the next few minutes. And then the real show begins at 4:30 Eastern, when the company’s earnings call–easily the most entertaining one in its peer group due to the censor-free presence of CEO Rupert Murdoch–begins. We’ll be looking for commentary on his battle/negotiation with Google (GOOG), upcoming content deals with Apple and the iPad, his thoughts on paid content in general, a dash of political commentary or two, and an update on the turnaround effort at MySpace.

From the release: A pretty nice quarter at most of the conglomerate’s divisions, including the previously battered broadcast TV and newspaper groups. News Corp. says print revenue at The Wall Street Journal was up five percent and ads on the Journal’s digital network were up 17 percent.

MySpace and the company’s other digital properties, shuffled into the “other” category, don’t get much of a mention, but don’t seem to have done much, not surprisingly.

But News Corp does mention that digital media earnings were down $32 million compared with a year ago, “principally due to lower search and advertising revenue.” And the company lost $29 million on “digital media dispositions”–i.e., the fire sale/giveaways of properties like Rotten Tomatoes and Photobucket.

Here’s the breakdown by segment (click table to enlarge):

Liveblog

CFO Dave DeVoe: “Extremely pleased” with the quarter.

Movies: Revenue up due to decent DVD sales (no MGM problem here). Also high costs due to “Avatar,” but big profits from the movie will be coming in during the next couple quarters.

Broadcast TV: Local ads are improving; the telecom, fast food, finance categories are all improving.

Cable: Revenue is up 18 percent. Affiliate revenue is up 21 percent (more money for Fox News subs), and there was a “single-digit” boost in ad dollars.

Newspapers: Journal dollars are up, operating costs down. Ad revenue got better as the quarter progressed.

Books: Revenue up, expenses down.

“Other”/MySpace: Digital media revenue down, but cost-cutting helped trim losses.

News Corp. is boosting its dividend by 25 percent.

Guidance: The company’s operating income growth rate is expected to grow from single digits to the high teens. Better than anticipated: Film group, TV and cable. But revenue goals for digital media, including MySpace, will take longer than anticipated.

Murdoch sings the praises of content. [I will not argue with him, for now]. “Avatar” is awesome, he says, a “harbinger of fundamental change in the industry.” Also really good: “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” Fun to hear Rupe say “Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

WSJ is the No.1 paper in U.S. in terms of circulation, influence, quality. WSJ.com is a “digital model for newspapers around the world.”

Fox News Channel’s audience is both “loyal and lucrative.” Roger Ailes is doing an “admirable job” [translation: Bite me, Michael Wolff--the author of a recent Murdoch biography].

Last year, Murdoch says, News Corp.’s pay-to-play ideas sounded nutty, but now “the content clan has gathered around our ideas.” Consumers must pay and will pay “to be entertained and informed.” All those awesome new gadgets being made in China and sold at the Consumer Electronics Show need content or they’re worthless. Content, content, content. Get it? Content, content, content.

Murdoch says he’ll be wringing more dollars from cable operators. And “when it comes to online news, we’ll be changing that model too,” adding that News Corp. is in “substantive conversations with device makers on developing subscription models” to deliver content. And don’t forget about 3-D!

Not performing well but “long-term growth drivers”: Sky Italia satellite service. Also Sky Deutschland. And MySpace is “not yet where we want it.” In the last quarter, however, MySpace “started to see signs of traffic stabilization.”

Shout-outs for Chase Carey and other managers (but not by name).

Q&A

Question: How big a deal is retransmission consent in coming years? $40 million a month? $100 million a month?

Chase Carey: No numbers, but it’s going to be a “transforming event.” We have two of top 10 distributors done, more coming. It’s a three- or four-year process to knock these deals out.

Q: Does this fix the broadcast model?

Carey: “Yes, I guess you could say simplistically, it fixes it.”

Q: What’s the timing on an “Avatar” DVD, and what about a sequel? Also, how do TV ads look this year?

Murdoch: For “Avatar,” we think about 60 percent of profits will be in the next six months. Which means the DVD will be coming “as soon as possible,” but the movie will stay in cinemas for a while because we’re doing huge dollars in theaters still. Sequel? “Very early talks about it. Jim has ideas for one. We haven’t come to any agreement with him….Being Jim Cameron, I wouldn’t hold your breath for an early one.” Asked about the economics of a future release (“Will you keep the same revenue split?”), Rupe sort of rumbles and growls and sort of doesn’t have much to say. “Ask anybody; it is very easy to drop a $100 million in a hurry on a film, and we’d like to lay off some of the risk.”

Carey: TV trends for this year are “positive.”

Murdoch: TV stations will be up 18 or 19 percent, but last year was terrible. We’re still down compared with two years ago. Hard to see more than a quarter in advance. In newspapers, it’s hard to see more than a few weeks.

[Missed a question on Sky Italia here.]

Q: What are growth prospects for cable networks? They’ve been driven a lot recently by new subscriber fees. How much longer can you get those boosts?

Murdoch: Overall, “we think we have great potential for growth. Quite a long way to go yet.” Look at how NBCU’s USA is growing.

Carey: In the U.S., we’re moving to “quality over quantity”–we can wring more out of foreign exchange, etc. Fox News is only getting more powerful; it has “great upside.”

Q: Regarding newspapers, what growth came from organic increase versus currency fluctuations?

The majority is from foreign exchange.

Q: Does your guidance assume that the “Avatar” DVD is coming in the next two quarters?

Murdoch: “Yes, but it won’t be 3-D” [which I don't think the analyst was asking about].

Q: Back to retransmission consent: You’ve been getting more and more money from cable guys. Why can’t you get $4 or $5 per subscription for Fox broadcast subs?

Murdoch: “We’re modest people.”

Carey: Hyuk, hyuk. Real answer: It takes time. “We try to approach this constructively. We’ve built businesses with [cable guys], we’ve built valuable cable channels” [translation: patience!]. We want to extract more without killing the cable guys.

Murdoch: That said, we’re asking for the same thing [for broadcast channels] that the cable networks are getting, which “certainly won’t kill the cable companies.”

Q: Please talk about value of film libraries (i.e., MGM). They’re generating big operating profits for cable now. How long will this last?

Murdoch: Regarding the MGM auction, “you can count us out of that one altogether” because others will pay more than we’re willing. And we’re not pursuing the Miramax catalog at all.

Carey: A film library by itself, without new stuff coming through, is a “depreciating asset.”

Q: On guidance: You say the ad market getting better, etc., but it sounds like you’re saying Ebidta growth is slowing.

Murdoch: “We honestly do not have any visibility about the last quarter.”

Q: On books/e-books/Apple, what’s going on with that?

Murdoch: We don’t like the Amazon model of $9.99….We think it really devalues books and hurts all the retailers of hardcover books. We’re not against electronic books; on the contrary, we like them very much, lower costs to us, but we want some room to maneuver. The Apple deal does allow “some flexibility and higher prices” though e-books will still be lower than print. And now Amazon is willing to sit down with us again.

Press Q&A

Q: What’s up with plans to charge for newspapers on the Web?

Murdoch: “Not ready to announce yet [long pause]. We won’t be ready yet to make an announcement.” A “lot of talks with a lot of people.” There will be more to say within the next two months, Murdoch adds.

Q: Are you still going to fall $100 million short on the Google deal?

Murdoch: Yes. People using social networks don’t use search a great deal. Facebook has seen this, too. It’s “really too early to make confident predictions…but from going down, we’re beginning to go up.”

Q: Can we get some details about Time Warner Cable (TWC) deal?

Nope.

What about Conan O’Brien on late night?

Murdoch: If the programming people can show us we can do it and make a profit on it, we’ll do it in a flash. I’m sure there have been conversations with Conan, but “if you mean real negotiations, no.”

[Missed two questions here.]

Q: Another late-night question: If you do go into negotiations with Conan, how do you placate your affiliates?

Murdoch: It’s a different deal than NBC. They screwed up 10 pm, which reduced the lead-in to local news. Our affiliates run syndicated programming at 11:30, though, so it will take time to adjust there.

Call ended. This one seemed short to me.

More or less redundant disclosure: News Corp. (NWS) owns this Web site.

“The settlement would alter the landscape of copyright law, for millions and millions of rights holders of out-of-print books,” Peters said. “It would flip copyright on its head by allowing Google to engage in extensive new uses without the consent of the copyright owner–in my view, making a mockery of Article One of the Constitution, that anticipates that authors shall be granted exclusive rights.”

The settlement, as Peters sees it, will allow Google (GOOG) to profit from the work of others without prior consent. “It could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come,” she said. “In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later, under the imprimatur of the court.”

One of the more blistering attacks on the deal to date, especially given its source: The nation’s top copyright official. But Google nevertheless dismissed it as unfounded: “We think the settlement is legal, and we think it is structured well within the guidelines of what you can do in a class action settlement,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, said during the hearing. “It certainly is not usurping Congress’s authority to do whatever it wants.”

A typically arrogant response from Google, though the company does appear to be conceding a bit of ground in the face of widening opposition to the deal. Responding to Peters’s criticism and claims that the deal will essentially grant Google a de facto monopoly over out-of-print books, Drummond said the company plans to make those works available to any book retailer.

“For the out-of-print books being made available through the Google Books settlement, we will let any book retailer sell access to those books,” Drummond told the committee. “Google will host the digital books online, and retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore will be able to sell access to users on any internet-connected device they choose.”

Sadly for Google, that conciliatory gesture did not go over well with critics of the deal. “The Internet has never been about intermediation,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said of the company’s offer. “We are happy to work with rights holders without anyone else’s help.”

The Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley was even more disdainful. “I fail to see what’s really new here,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s like Macy’s telling Sears, ‘You can sell Macy’s clothing.’ There’s no fundamental change of the conditions under which Macy’s acquires those clothes. Google remains in control.”

Twitter Kremlinologists are currently scouring Stone’s Delphic statement, contained in a blog post yesterday, announcing changes to the company’s Terms of Service.

My guess: Twitter would like to leave the door open for advertising. One day. Maybe. Possibly. You never know.

Or, as the company notes within the new TOS itself: “We’re leaving the door open for exploration in this area but we don’t have anything to announce.”

Okay. So maybe not quite so mysterious.

The rest of the new TOS seems similarly uneventful, and given that Twitter reserves the right to change any of it at any time–that’s boilerplate language for these things–methinks it’s hard to get worked up about any of this. It’s certainly hard to see a Facebook-style flare-up in the works.

Anyway, if you want to go really, really deep here, go nuts: Twitter has helpfully kept a copy of its old TOS up on the site (nice catch, ReadWriteWeb). So you can compare and contrast to your heart’s content.

One change that might actually be a tiny bit meaningful for run-of-the-mill users comes not from the TOS itself, but from Twitter’s new rules for developers who tap into its data stream to create their own Twitter-powered services.

The relevant language: “Get each user’s consent before sending Tweets or other messages on their behalf. A user authenticating with your application does not constitute consent to send a message.”

If you’ve ever played with a few Twitter apps, you know what Stone and company are  talking about here: You try out some app, give it your account name and password, and the next thing you know it has sent out a Tweet in your name that you didn’t approve.

It usually says something along the lines of “I’m using Fantasticapp and it’s changed my life. You should, too!”

Embarrassing, and/or annoying, but not the end of the world, obviously. And you might even put up with that kind of slippery behavior in another service. But Twitter is both so personal and so public that it needs to be explicit about banning this stuff.

An interesting variation on the “membership drive” and one that’s gotten Tagged in hot water with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who intends to sue the company “for deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy.”

“This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their e-mail contacts for Tagged’s unethical–and illegal–behavior. This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books and sending phony mail to all of an individual’s personal contacts. We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online.”

Tagged, for its part, claims this is all just a big misunderstanding. In a statement of its own, the company denied abusing its users’ personal address books, saying, essentially, it had their consent to do so.

“When our company tested a new registration process, we discovered that our ‘invite your friends’ language was confusing,” said Tagged CEO Greg Tseng. “…In no instance did Tagged access a person’s personal address book without their consent and no emails were sent without the person giving us permission. We realize that some were confused and accidentally agreed to invite their friends.”

Oh, and next time you register for a social network, be sure to read its Terms of Service–especially the portions that are presented in ALL CAPS. They might be important. From Tagged’s Terms of Service:

“E) Notice Regarding Commercial Email

MEMBERS CONSENT TO RECEIVE COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM TAGGED, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED BY TAGGED FOR THE PURPOSE OF INITIATING COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES.”

An interesting variation on the “membership drive” and one that’s gotten Tagged in hot water with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who intends to sue the company “for deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy.”

“This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their e-mail contacts for Tagged’s unethical–and illegal–behavior. This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books and sending phony mail to all of an individual’s personal contacts. We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online.”

Tagged, for its part, claims this is all just a big misunderstanding. In a statement of its own, the company denied abusing its users’ personal address books, saying, essentially, it had their consent to do so.

“When our company tested a new registration process, we discovered that our ‘invite your friends’ language was confusing,” said Tagged CEO Greg Tseng. “…In no instance did Tagged access a person’s personal address book without their consent and no emails were sent without the person giving us permission. We realize that some were confused and accidentally agreed to invite their friends.”

Oh, and next time you register for a social network, be sure to read its Terms of Service–especially the portions that are presented in ALL CAPS. They might be important. From Tagged’s Terms of Service:

“E) Notice Regarding Commercial Email

MEMBERS CONSENT TO RECEIVE COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM TAGGED, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED BY TAGGED FOR THE PURPOSE OF INITIATING COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES.”

It’s taken nearly a year, but the inevitable class-action fallout from Facebook’s ill-starred Beacon advertising system has finally begun. Filed in California, the suit claims Facebook and its ad partners violated online privacy and computer fraud laws by collecting and publicly disclosing information about users’ online activities without proper consent. Facebook’s “Beacon” advertisements, as you may recall, transformed member transactions on third-party partner sites into product/service endorsements and inserted them into their friends’ “news feeds.” Facebook members, or should I say “fansumers,” were automatically opted-in to the program. Worse, Beacon collected information about member actions on affiliate sites even if they’d opted out of the service and logged off from Facebook. As the suit notes, “By the time any user was notified that Facebook was (at a minimum) an observing party to the transaction, and that Facebook was asking for an approval to publicly broadcast identifying information regarding the event, personally identifying information had already been communicated to Facebook.”

Given that, it’s surprising this suit, which demands the deletion of any ill-gotten data and some form of restitution, wasn’t filed earlier. Certainly, it seems a sure thing after Facebook’s acknowledgment of these issues.

[Image credit: FSJ]

Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people. It’s no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. So we set out to use these social actions to build a new kind of ad system.”

–Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

“Once every hundred years media changes.” With that vainglorious pronouncement, Zuckerberg on Tuesday ushered in a new era of socially networked advertising.

Or did he? Because according to Daniel J. Solove, an associate professor of law at the George Washington University Law School, combining a Facebook user’s name and image with an advertiser’s message in a so-called “Social Ad” without that user’s express permission may be illegal.

“It seems as though Facebook might be assuming that if a person talks about a product, then he or she consents to being used in an advertisement for it,” Solove writes. “But such an assumption might be wrong, and the use of a person’s name or image in an advertisement without that person’s consent might constitute a violation of the appropriation of name or likeness tort. … According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652C: ‘One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy.’ “

Now Facebook claims no personally identifiable information is shared with an advertiser in creating a Social Ad. “Facebook has always empowered users to make choices about sharing their data, and with Facebook Ads we are extending that to marketing messages that appear on the site,” the company explains. “Facebook users will only see Social Ads to the extent their friends are sharing information with them.” That’s certainly a thoughtful assurance. But it doesn’t exactly address the issue of Facebook appropriating user identities for its own benefit.