• Advertising Age, Thursday, May 19, 2011 10:30 AM

A recent Consumer Reports survey found that as many as 7.5 million Facebook users in the U.S. are under 13, which violates Facebook's user policies. About 14.4 million are between the ages of 13 and 17, which is younger than the age of legal consent in most states. But Facebook's ad strategy exploits users' "likes" to disseminate ads that show the user's name and image.

Facebook says its Teens Safety Tips page details its position and guidelines on teens and advertising. But the page doesn't mention parental consent for any activities, barely mentions age, and doesn't mention advertising at all. Meanwhile, three lawsuits against Facebook in California, and New York charge Facebook with failing to obtain parental consent for using the images of minors in these socially distributed, branded "likes."

The Facebook tips page says, "Think of social media as a get-together at one of your child's friends' houses." But one parent argues that "they are basically taking users and using them for endorsements of products, and even if their terms of service says something, I don't see how a minor child can consent to something like that. Of course, it's a violation of the law."

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