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Facebook settles 'sponsored stories' lawsuit
The social network didn't reveal terms of the settlement, which ends a suit over a feature that would have publicized users' "likes" without permission or compensation.
Facebook has settled a lawsuit over its "sponsored stories" feature, in which plaintiffs claimed the social network violated users' right to privacy by publicizing their "likes" in advertisements without asking them or compensating them.
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Details of the settlement weren't released, Reuters reported. The judge in the case last year rejected a Facebook request to dismiss the lawsuit and had scheduled a hearing on class-action certification for Thursday.
Facebook's sponsored-stories ads essentially display a user's name, picture, and a tagline asserting that the person "likes" a particular advertiser. These particular ads initially appeared only in Facebook's right column, but in January the social network moved them directly into users' news feeds, identifying them as "sponsored" stories.
