Gawker founder faces ban from Facebook for violation of Terms of Service
By Sean P. Aune
Gawker media, the notorius New York City-based blog network, seems to be on everyone’s lips lately, but for all the wrong reasons.
Gawker made a name for itself for salacious gossip based around the New York City society and publishing scenes. In one of its most recent stories though, they have raised the ire of the social network, Facebook, and their founder faces possible suspension of his account for his company’s actions.
Using images found on the profile of Emily Brill, the 25-year-old daughter of Steve Brill, a New York City publisher, they ran comparison photos of Ms. Brill when she was heavier than she is today. Apparently Ms. Brill has posted some photos of herself from a yachting trip to the British Virgin Islands, and was excited about an impending trip to St. Bart’s, and Gawker saw this as gossip-worthy to show that she used to weigh more.
The problem for Gawker came when they seem to have violated Facebook’s Terms of Service (TOS) by using images of her profile to show the comparison of how Ms. Brill looked in 2005, and how she looks now. The TOS states:
“Except for your own User Content, you may not upload or republish Site Content on any Internet, Intranet or Extranet site or incorporate the information in any other database or compilation, and any other use of the Site Content is strictly prohibited.”
Upon discovery of the image use, Facebook has notified the founder of Gawker, Nick Denton, by a letter that if he, or his agents, violate the TOS again, he will have his account terminated.
All of this news was originally reported by Portfolio.com, which Mr. Denton informed Webware.com, when they ran a follow-up piece, was merely running the story because they were “trying to get his retaliation in first, because we’re working on a story about him.”
This writer is suddenly very glad he lives nowhere near New York City.
As we reported at the first of the month, Gawker is going through some belt tightening in regards to what they pay their writers. This was followed by an incident at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that ended up getting one of their writers from Gizmodo banned from the show, and set off a maelstrom of anti-Gizmodo sentiments around the blogosphere. It has not been a good 2008 thus far those at the blog network.
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