Is Ethical Line Crossed When Children “Like” Products?

An Advertising Age article discusses recent litigation filed by parents against
Facebook® alleging that the social network has used names and/or likenesses
of their children in product endorsements without obtaining parental
consent. While no child younger than age 13 is supposed to be able to set
up a Facebook® account, Consumer Reports estimates that some 7.5 million
of these children have such accounts, with an additional 14.4 million users
between ages 13 and 17. When they click a “like” button for a product, such
as a food or beverage, no mechanism is apparently available to limit how the
children’s images and preferences are then used for advertising purposes
on the Internet. According to the article, a large part of the social network’s
advertising strategy is to turn users’ “likes” into advertisements showing the
users’ names and images. Legal experts are reportedly unsure whether this
strategy is legal, even when adults’ names and images are used without
consent. See Advertising Age, May 19, 2011.