• SFGate.com, Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:15 AM

Facebook on Tuesday settled a legal dispute with an Indiana woman who claimed the social-networking giant had been profiting from text messages it was sending her after she had assumed the former number of a Facebook member. In the suit, plaintiff Lindsay Adams said she was forced to pay 10 cents for receiving SMS messages directed at somebody else containing "explicit comments and other upsetting content." Facebook received a share of those fees, according to the complaint. Abrams said she started receiving the messages shortly after getting a new mobile number from Verizon Wireless.

Abrams' lawyers had been hoping the suit would be classified as class action, alleging that thousands of other unsolicited texts had been sent under similar circumstances nationwide--some undoubtedly went to numbers belonging to young children.

Facebook's oversight is one of the many problems that can arise amid rapid growth. Its rapid growth has greatly increased the chances of unauthorized messages originating from its network. Nearly 40 million people have joined Facebook in the past eight months. In response, Facebook said it would work more closely with mobile carriers and try to make it easier for SMS recipients to block future messages. But the company issued no apology, this time.

Read the whole story at SFGate.com »