Are Facebook Photo Websites Legal?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on February 15th, 2008 3:28 PM

A new phenomenon has popped up. Lonely guys making websites about girls that they don’t even know after finding their photos on Facebook. These sites are nothing short of stalker-ish. At one point the website FbChicks was shut down thanks to a legal complaint filed against them. It appears to be up and running again. A friend of mine instant-messaged me this afternoon with the hottest girls on Facebook website. This guy has gone through and as his site says, picked out the hottest girls on Facebook.

The strange part is that he has accessed their profile to get their pictures and I’m confident he didn’t phone them to ask. If I was the dad of any of these girls I would be pretty furious. He picked a group of sisters and created a separate blog post for each. This brings up the issue of privacy on Facebook and I would argue that in the way it is currently being used, it should be considered illegal. I’m not a lawyer though and I’m sure these guys have plenty of legal support given that they also have websites for the hottest Flickr and MySpace girls.

Something about the grouping of these photos makes it feel wrong even if it isn’t illegal. Do you think these sites should be shut down? Do you know the privacy law surrounding it? I wish I could speak more about the legality but I’m not a lawyer.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 3:28 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 17 Comments

Brock Landers 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

I recently saw this article as it links to my site. For the record the site has been toned down a TON. Second of all, I remove any post when a girl has contacted me and wishes it taken down. Thirdly, I've received letters from girls actually thanking me for posting them. As far as the legal implications? That's up to you guys to debate but if the girls aren't complaining I'm not sure you guys should be. I mean no one harm. But you just keep writing about all things Facebook, use the word FACEBOOK as often as possible and keep building that traffic up.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://hottestgirlsonfacebook.com

Brock Landers 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Ah yes, one more comment. If I were a dad of one of these girls I'd be furious at my DAUGHTER FOR POSTING THESE PICTURES ON FACEBOOK, not the guy who posted them on his site. Guys are guys, and all guys (at least heterosexual guys) like pictures of attractive women, even dads.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://hottestgirlsonfacebook.com

Leon Westbrook 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Probably the only illegal thing they are doing is using the facebook name. Its up to the individual girls to take action.

Sites like these have been running long before myspace and facebook.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.leonwestbrook.com

xavierv 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

I've just checked out the site. It's no big deal, and people on social networks should know that once a picture is online, it is meant to being seen by unknown strangers.

So if my daughter dresses like a sl**, I wouldn't be surprised to find her pic on such sites.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://hyveup.blogspot.com

Jonathan Kleiman 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Privacy laws have everything to do with a reasonable expectation of privacy. I believe that if it went to court, it could go one of two ways.

Either (1) you lose your expectation of privacy regarding pictures you post on Facebook and therefore you lose most of your privacy rights or (2) you had a reasonable expectation of privacy, in which case Facebook is also to blame for creating that false expectation.

However, there are also publicity rights, and even public figures have some control over who makes money off of their likeness.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.probook.ca/

Jonathan Kleiman 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

my daughter, whenever she's born, is officially not allowed on facebook. good find Nick. what a shame though

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.probook.ca/

Brian Breslin 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

how do they get access to these people's albums? does this person have a master account? or did these girls want the attention so they set their albums to public?

reply edit flag record video comment

http://webpl.us

Jonathan Kleiman 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

they could also use public albums

or they could have access to any of the applications that gain full access to accounts of members who have added them.

For those users who have had their info posted like this just for signing up to applications, they were never warned about the level of privacy they were losing by doing so. Facebook will likely need a legal team just for those folks.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.probook.ca/

baron 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

fbchicks was never shut down, just so you know. and there was no legal complaint against them, just facebook wanting a disclaimer that the two arent related, with which we complied

reply edit flag record video comment

Wendell Dryden 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Presumably the photos are being used without permission (i.e., in violation of copyright, etc). If that's the case, then the site or page or whatever is... illegal? in violation of Fb TOS? in some kind of legal trouble. No matter how publicly visable, pics can't be re-used without permission. (Yeah, yeah. I know. Nobody's actually going enforce that kind of letter-of-the-law strict attention to copyright.)

Of course, if there is permission, then there's no story.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://gladtobehome.blogspot.com/

Ashley 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

People put their pictures on Facebook with the intentions that their friends and potential friends can see them. Also, if people wanted the entire web to see their pictures why give the option of blocking people you don't want to see your page? Privacy issues should be questioned. There are privacy laws in regards to the internet depending on the contract you entered into when you uploaded on to a site. EHarmony doesn't allow people to upload their slutty pictures just to have anyone upload and possibly make money of it, why should facebook?

reply edit flag record video comment

Jonathan Kleiman 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

It all depends on whether we're making our pictures public by joining Facebook. Ultimately, only a court can decide.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.probook.ca/

Adam 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Regardless of whether the photos are public or not, there is the copyright issue. I highly doubt 'Hottest Girls on Facebook' falls under fair use. Does he get permission from the people who own the photos?

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.MetropolisTimes.com

Jonathan Kleiman 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

Nope
He acts nice and smug, but one single discontented girl could sue his pants off. The fact that he stops breaking the law when asked just reveals the slime. Not a single girl is contacts before the photos are posted, and the vast majority of the girls probably have no idea. Punitive damages are a bitch when you're breaking laws to destroy the reputations of young ladies.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://www.probook.ca/

Jack 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

As far as im concerned with anything on the internet if you post it its free game. i expect and sexual pictures i take of my self to be shared. the internet is not private no matter how much you think you are protected. so yeah it may be sick in point of view but what about their daddies? would he want his child doing this in the 1st place? some parents see this as blessing because they are alerted to their child's behavior, or in some cases these girls do feel vilotated and thus stop doing it. no one is hurting these girls, they are doing it them selves and letting the world see it.

reply edit flag record video comment

Christovir 6 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

While the site does have a slight yuckiness to it, I don't think there have been any privacy violations, certainly not legal ones. All of these pictures were publicly posted to facebook on open networks. You can set profiles/pictures to private to make them unavailable, but these were made public. Privacy cannot be expected in an explicitly public environment.

*However* there are most certainly copyright violations, and the copyright holders of those pictures could take the site owner to court for copyright infringement and win a nice chunk of change.

reply edit flag record video comment

http://exeterra.blogspot.com

jane 5 months ago 1 point
Please login to rate.

Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.

All it takes is someone thinking that pointing a camera at you is asking for your permission to share it. Many of these girls may not even know their photos are up never mind being used by another site.

Just because the photo exists doesn't mean these girls even know it is on the internet. I think we have all been surprised by a photo being posted of us without consent.

If someone doesn't ask for it to be taken down it isn't the same as permission.

reply edit flag record video comment