Facebook pays out for sharing users’ personal details in adverts

Around 614,000 Facebook users will each receive just over €11 compensation from the social networking giants for having had their personal details appear in adverts on the site without their permission.

It is estimated that 150 million members of Facebook had their names and pictures used in Sponsored Stories, an online advertising campaign. However it is only those who responded to an email from the site earlier this year that will be compensated.

A Sponsored Story, according to the programme is an advert tailored to a users taste and appears on a member’s Facebook pages, highlighting products that said user’s friends have endorsed in or “liked” on the site.

The payout followed a class action filed against the social networking company by five users in 2011 and was approved by a US court on Monday. This group stated that their details had been used to promote products and services through the site’s Sponsored Stories programme, without offering them any pay or providing them with the choice to opt-out.

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