Facebook forced to let users opt out of their names from being used in sponsored stories

Earlier, users who liked a brand page or had something interesting to say about them could possibly become part of what Facebook calls "Sponsored Stories".

Sponsored stories basically highlight user's experience with a brand to promote it further. Facebook uses a person's name and face while crafting such sponsored stories and that's where problem arises. Till now a user had no control over whether his/her identity could be used to create such adverts.

While some users who became part of sponsored stories enjoyed the spotlight, others were annoyed and some even embarrassed. Last year, five angry members of the social networking site had filed a legal case against the tech giant after their faces were used in sponsored stories and they couldn't do anything about it.

The case has come a settlement where Facebook agrees to allow users the chance to opt out of their profiles being used in these adverts for at least the next two years.

The settlement rules: “Facebook will create an easily accessible mechanism that enables users to view the subset of their interactions and other content that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories. Facebook will further engineer settings to enable users, upon viewing the interactions and other content that have been used in Sponsored Stories, to control which of these interactions and other content are edible to appear in additional Sponsored Stories.”