Facebook Marketing = Go to Jail? Legal Challenges

2011 According to legal analysts, there is a law
being passed which could in theory make many
types of affiliate marketing a federal felony.
In theory, many types of marketing, which don’t
fall under the terms and conditions of sites and
social networks, could be prosecuted under the
Department of Justice, for as much as three years
in federal prison for each instance.

The issue here has to do with the Computer Fraud
and Abuse act of 1986, which was originally made to
prosecute and convict hackers, has been expanded
over the years to include almost any type of “unauthorized
access.” While this is currently just a misdemeanor, and
the DOJ ignores these cases unless they are in combination with
“real” crimes, that might be changing. Well, congress
is about to expand this law to make it a felony, and make any
“excess unauthorized access” a federal felony.

Pushing for congress to enact this is companies like
Microsoft and… well, Facebook. The problem with
this is that this law will make it ILLEGAL to do anything
that is in violation of the terms and condition when you
sign up for example Facebook.

That means if you are one of those marketers
who use Facebook to promote your business, and
the terms and conditions prohibits you from posting
commercial messages on other people’s pages, or perhaps
sending out commercial messages via the message function,
you could be arrested for “excess unauthorized
access.”

Think this is not possible? Well, in 2009 it turns out
that the DOJ actually did prosecute a woman who violated
the Terms of Service of Myspace for using a “fake photo” on
her profile. Why was this illegal? Because the TOS required her
to only use real photos of her.

You should read the Facebook TOS, there are several things
that you could be prosecuted for.

For example:

You will not engage in unlawful multi-level marketing, such
as a pyramid scheme, on Facebook. In theory, if you ever
mention a MLM product on Facebook, you could now go to
jail. If you mention it 10 times, you could spend 30 years in
prison?

You will not provide any false personal information on
Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than
yourself without permission.You want to make another
profile for your business, and one for your personal use
to keep people separate? Well, that’s illegal.

You will not post content or take any action on
Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or
otherwise violates the law.Want to promote a free gift card
product, go to jail if you don’t have rights to the TM. Just
some of the examples. In theory, many, many

CPA networks are violating the law when they use
facebook to promote their network in any fashion, or an
offer and do not use the facebook advertising system.

You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized
commercial communications (such as spam) on Facebook.

What is Spam? What is unauthorized? This means if
you use facebook to market any product, or even reach
out to a potential customer, is that illegal? Do we want
to criminalize this?

What’s even worse, if your company engages in
unauthorized marketing on any forum, any social network
or any site (that means even comment spam, which I hate),
you could be also prosecuted as organized criminals under the
changes in the law.

Hopefully this to will pass, it just seems that every
time we turn aroundthe minority is trying to dictate their
non entrepreneurial mindset on the masses. If you don’t
like a message on your Facebook wall UNFRIEND them, pretty
simple. The last thing we need is more government regulation
as it results to anything.