Facebook has asked a federal judge in southern Illinois to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed in June on behalf of two Granite City moms.
The suit filed on behalf of the children of Melissa Dawes and Jennifer DeYoung alleges that Facebook inappropriately uses its "like" feature to monitor the interests of minors and then use those interests to market products to others within the minor's social network.
"Facebook has two choices," Aaron Zigler, the attorney for the moms, told
Daily RFT in June. "It can
either either get parental approval to allow minors to appear in
enhanced ads, or it needs to get rid of that feature for its users under
the age of eighteen."
Facebook has now
responded to the lawsuit, asking the judge to toss it out on constitutional grounds. "Expressions of consumer opinion, such as the plaintiffs' Like
statements challenged here, have repeatedly qualified as matters of
public interest under the First Amendment," Facebook argues in its motion to dismiss.
H/T Courthouse News