A U.S. District Court Judge has dismissed a proposed class
action lawsuit against Facebook. The suit claimed that the social media company
is impermissibly using the names and likenesses of minors in its advertising.
Judge Richard Seeborg, of the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of California, rejected the plaintiff’s assertion that, even
if permission for such use was acquired via the plaintiffs’ acceptance of
Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (“SRRs”,) since the
plaintiff class is made up solely of minors the SRRs are unenforceable against
them under California
law. Judge Seeborg writes, “Plaintiffs’
arguments largely flow from an opposite and incorrect presumption, that minors
generally do not have the power to
contract.” Under California’s Family
Code §6710, “Except as otherwise provided by statute, a contract of a minor may
be disaffirmed by the minor before majority or within a reasonable time
afterwards or, in case of the minor’s death within that period, by the minor’s
heirs or personal representative.”
“Although this section almost certainly would allow [p]laintiffs to
disaffirm the SRRs, they have never plainly expressed an intent to do so, and
they do not dispute that they continued to use their Facebook accounts long
after this action was filed. While
Plaintiffs argue that a minor may disaffirm a contract without restoring any of
the benefits he or she has received, they have offered no explanation as to how
the principle would somehow retroactively vitiate the consent they had given
through the SRRs at the time their names and profile pictures were used,”
writes Judge Seeborg.
According to Facebook it only republishes information users
have already voluntarily shared with certain Facebook friends with those very
same friends and “sometimes alongside a related advertisement.”
The order dismissing the complaint is available here.
