5 ms·

Seen this and thought it was a bit of a ridiculous lawsuit, maybe a unique one. Somehow Facebook was supposed to know about the school's financial problem? I d

by Keverw 7y ago

Seen this and thought it was a bit of a ridiculous lawsuit, maybe a unique one. Somehow Facebook was supposed to know about the school's financial problem? I doubt people in Facebook's office in California are watching the local news for Ohio. Facebook just approves ads for content, but as for targeting and budgeting that's all self-controlled and mostly automated other than ad content being approved. I believe Google's ad system works a similar way, ad text or image is approved but as for budget and keywords that's all on you to set up, pause, resume, etc. Kinda feel like the school districts are stretching the law here. I wonder if the school paid with a credit card? Did their bank and credit card network commit fraud too for allowing the payment to go through?

KirinDave 7y ago
There actually are a fair number of burdens placed on advertisers w.r.t. the content of their ads. Ads are not covered by the usual "safe harbor" rules that service providers are used to operating under. For example, Facebook actually can't legally permit ads that show products falsely claiming health benefits. If they're caught doing it, they're open to legal liability and their best response is to immediately discontinue as soon as they know about it. Other online ad providers actually go through varying amount of work to try and make sure they don't get caught here. This is just part of the operating cost of being a big ad provider. Either you spend lots of money avoiding the bad ads (difficult) or you lose money to lawsuits for letting them through (damaging).
- nkrisc 7y ago
  But this isn't about the content of the ads at all. The lawsuit is in relation to some Ohio law that says vendors can't sell to insolvent or nearly-insolvent firms, claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. Not trying to absolve Facebook of guilt. If they do business in Ohio they should follow Ohio law.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > The lawsuit is in relation to some Ohio law that says vendors can't sell to insolvent or nearly-insolvent firms, claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. Simple solution: If you're buying ad inventory in Ohio, Facebook should ask you to check a box that confirms you're not insolvent. Had they done that, they'd have a pretty good ass-cover for this kind of lawsuit. "We didn't ask" is not a great defense. "They defrauded us" is a much better one. Each state has its own laws, much like how each country has its own laws. It's on a multinational company to comply with all of them... Or not do business.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      I'm not super familiar with the specifics of the law, but often times these sorts of guards are considered empty gestures - banks can't avoid checking the providence of large transfers by exposing a "Check here if you aren't laundering money" checkbox, it's on facebook to adhere to these laws since they've chosen to participate in that market - they certainly weren't forced to offer advertisement hosting in Ohio, they chose to pursue that.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      If they haven't done something like that already I'm sure they will soon. The argument being made "Facebook should have known" seems silly on the surface but the law's the law. I'm sure they'll find the absolute minimum way to remain compliant going forward.
      - olliej 7y ago
        “They should have known” - I suspect the argument will be similar to patent law in that “if anyone at the company knew, the company itself knew knew”, coupled with the news of the insolvency, etc being posted on facebook. The argument that they shouldn’t have to vet ads is clearly nonsense: if you are selling ad space you are required to adhere to advertising standards. In this state at least it sounds like those standards include not selling ads to companies in extreme financial distress. The fact that FB is trying to lower costs for ads by not following the law is kind of irrelevant.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. The lawsuit doesn't claim that "somehow Facebook should have known." It claims that Facebook actually knew. Big difference.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      I was loose and colloquial with my phrasing. You can tell I'm not a lawyer.
    - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
      The lawyer for the schools claims that Facebook must have known because comments were posted on Facebook to that effect: > “Facebook knew what was going on,” said Ellen Kramer, the lead attorney hired by the school districts. “There was all sorts of stuff being posted about the demise of ECOT on Facebook and yet they still took this money. So Facebook knew or should have known of the financial difficulties ECOT was experiencing at the time they accepted the payments.” I don't expect Facebook to use opinions posted on its site to determine facts about its business dealings. It would be one thing if Facebook Payments found that ECOT's bank was no longer willing to pay out of their account, and accepted ECOT's office building in exchange for running ads, or if they're working on a credit basis and learned that ECOT's FICO scores had tanked. It's completely different if they're supposed to read news articles or worse, forum comments to make an estimation of their customer's financial solvency.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    Yes, I gave an example of burdens advertisers face, but as I lead the post with: there are many.
henryfjordan 7y ago
> Somehow Facebook was supposed to know about the school's financial problem? I doubt people in Facebook's office in California are watching the local news for Ohio. They took the money, and according the law they shouldn't have done that. Facebook doesn't get some magical pass because their systems are automated. If they want to do business, they need to follow the same rules as everyone else. If their automation doesn't cover all the corner-cases of the law, that's on them and they should be deprived of any profit derived from their rule-breaking.
- ars 7y ago
  How far do you want to take that? If some tiny locality passed a law that in order to accept online advertising you must XYZ, with the penalty in the millions - would you expect Facebook to follow that? What about another country? Would it not be more reasonable to require Facebook to have a physical presence in the locality in order to be bound by its laws?
  - rhizome 7y ago
    How would the tiny locality establish jurisdiction, or even standing? Locate a branch office of Facebook there?
    - ars 7y ago
      Well, that's kind of my question, isn't it? Does Facebook have a branch office in Ohio? If they do then they have no excuse.
      - Keverw 7y ago
        Found the case, it's against Facebook Payments. I'm actually surprised they have this info online as some court websites are very outdated or under a paywall. I know one website to pay tickets online in another county for example traffic tickets(red light cameras, etc) said it wasn't secure in Chrome yet they asked for sensitive info. https://clerkweb.summitoh.net/PublicSite/CaseDetail.aspx?CaseNo=CV-2019-04-1369&Suffix=&Type= https://clerkweb.summitoh.net/PublicSite/CaseDetail.aspx?Cas... Then Facebook has a license in Ohio too since Messenger lets you send money to people over chat. https://www.facebook.com/payments_terms/licenses https://www.facebook.com/payments_terms/licenses So maybe that's one way they can claim power over Facebook. Looks like the last action on the case was 05/17/2019 where it was assigned to another judge. So wonder what the next steps are for this case, will be interesting to follow. I was just curious about ECOT yesterday since that's the school I did my final years of high school and was wondering about where people would get their transcripts if say for college... Looks like records were being transferred to the last known district of residence, but there's also an email if you need help getting them it looks. I'm guessing probably where you lived when you were last in school then, probably not where you are now if you moved since then. The Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West in Toledo was the sponsor of ECOT. http://www.esclakeeriewest.org/ECOTInformation.aspx http://www.esclakeeriewest.org/ECOTInformation.aspx Also looks like the server is at Franklin County courthouse, the judge there approved $300,000 to upgrade the server to preserve it, as the FBI is also looking into the school over the campaign contributions. Then the other big thing ECOT got in trouble over was the way of accounting attendance. https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190801/judge-approves-moving-ecot-records-to-new-computer-server https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190801/judge-approves-moving... I liked ECOT. If I needed to ask questions I could send a email(they had a fake email system, wouldn't go to external addresses) or even call up... I felt they cared a lot more compared to the last public school I went to. Actually got way better grades too. But someone else who went to ECOT after me felt a bit different, so maybe things changed more since I went. I wish we had more school choice in America, instead of the city school being the default. Wish more competition but I think schools in general feel threatened and enjoy having a monopoly on education. Then apparently it's easier to fire teachers at charter and private schools, so public school teachers can be lousy and have great job security. Also other schools could try and claim they lost money too because of this, but aren't part of the lawsuit... Wonder how that works in the future if say Facebook lost and ordered to pay which is split between the schools. Can the other schools join in on the lawsuit or would they need to file separately? Not sure if it's technically considered a class action, since usually you get a notice about the lawsuit to join it automatically if you do nothing with a date to submit a claim or you opt-out to then file your lawsuit or get nothing. Be interesting if these schools won, and then other schools sue for the same amount... Then would FB have to pay out twice the amount? Unless they are only considering what those schools believe they lost directly that was spent on ad money, and not the total lost statewide, as that would make more sense - but I think they want the total money spent at FB total not considering which schools the funds originally came from. As ECOT had students in all 88 counties across the state, so it sounds like other schools not part of this lawsuit might be leaving money on the table if FB is found in the wrong.

by Keverw 7y ago

KirinDave 7y ago

There actually are a fair number of burdens placed on advertisers w.r.t. the content of their ads. Ads are not covered by the usual "safe harbor" rules that service providers are used to operating under. For example, Facebook actually can't legally permit ads that show products falsely claiming health benefits. If they're caught doing it, they're open to legal liability and their best response is to immediately discontinue as soon as they know about it. Other online ad providers actually go through varying amount of work to try and make sure they don't get caught here. This is just part of the operating cost of being a big ad provider. Either you spend lots of money avoiding the bad ads (difficult) or you lose money to lawsuits for letting them through (damaging).

nkrisc 7y ago
But this isn't about the content of the ads at all. The lawsuit is in relation to some Ohio law that says vendors can't sell to insolvent or nearly-insolvent firms, claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. Not trying to absolve Facebook of guilt. If they do business in Ohio they should follow Ohio law.
- vkou 7y ago
  > The lawsuit is in relation to some Ohio law that says vendors can't sell to insolvent or nearly-insolvent firms, claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. Simple solution: If you're buying ad inventory in Ohio, Facebook should ask you to check a box that confirms you're not insolvent. Had they done that, they'd have a pretty good ass-cover for this kind of lawsuit. "We didn't ask" is not a great defense. "They defrauded us" is a much better one. Each state has its own laws, much like how each country has its own laws. It's on a multinational company to comply with all of them... Or not do business.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I'm not super familiar with the specifics of the law, but often times these sorts of guards are considered empty gestures - banks can't avoid checking the providence of large transfers by exposing a "Check here if you aren't laundering money" checkbox, it's on facebook to adhere to these laws since they've chosen to participate in that market - they certainly weren't forced to offer advertisement hosting in Ohio, they chose to pursue that.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    If they haven't done something like that already I'm sure they will soon. The argument being made "Facebook should have known" seems silly on the surface but the law's the law. I'm sure they'll find the absolute minimum way to remain compliant going forward.
    - olliej 7y ago
      “They should have known” - I suspect the argument will be similar to patent law in that “if anyone at the company knew, the company itself knew knew”, coupled with the news of the insolvency, etc being posted on facebook. The argument that they shouldn’t have to vet ads is clearly nonsense: if you are selling ad space you are required to adhere to advertising standards. In this state at least it sounds like those standards include not selling ads to companies in extreme financial distress. The fact that FB is trying to lower costs for ads by not following the law is kind of irrelevant.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  claiming that somehow Facebook should have known ECOT had no money. The lawsuit doesn't claim that "somehow Facebook should have known." It claims that Facebook actually knew. Big difference.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    I was loose and colloquial with my phrasing. You can tell I'm not a lawyer.
  - LeifCarrotson 7y ago
    The lawyer for the schools claims that Facebook must have known because comments were posted on Facebook to that effect: > “Facebook knew what was going on,” said Ellen Kramer, the lead attorney hired by the school districts. “There was all sorts of stuff being posted about the demise of ECOT on Facebook and yet they still took this money. So Facebook knew or should have known of the financial difficulties ECOT was experiencing at the time they accepted the payments.” I don't expect Facebook to use opinions posted on its site to determine facts about its business dealings. It would be one thing if Facebook Payments found that ECOT's bank was no longer willing to pay out of their account, and accepted ECOT's office building in exchange for running ads, or if they're working on a credit basis and learned that ECOT's FICO scores had tanked. It's completely different if they're supposed to read news articles or worse, forum comments to make an estimation of their customer's financial solvency.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  Yes, I gave an example of burdens advertisers face, but as I lead the post with: there are many.

henryfjordan 7y ago

> Somehow Facebook was supposed to know about the school's financial problem? I doubt people in Facebook's office in California are watching the local news for Ohio. They took the money, and according the law they shouldn't have done that. Facebook doesn't get some magical pass because their systems are automated. If they want to do business, they need to follow the same rules as everyone else. If their automation doesn't cover all the corner-cases of the law, that's on them and they should be deprived of any profit derived from their rule-breaking.

ars 7y ago
How far do you want to take that? If some tiny locality passed a law that in order to accept online advertising you must XYZ, with the penalty in the millions - would you expect Facebook to follow that? What about another country? Would it not be more reasonable to require Facebook to have a physical presence in the locality in order to be bound by its laws?
- rhizome 7y ago
  How would the tiny locality establish jurisdiction, or even standing? Locate a branch office of Facebook there?
  - ars 7y ago
    Well, that's kind of my question, isn't it? Does Facebook have a branch office in Ohio? If they do then they have no excuse.
    - Keverw 7y ago
      Found the case, it's against Facebook Payments. I'm actually surprised they have this info online as some court websites are very outdated or under a paywall. I know one website to pay tickets online in another county for example traffic tickets(red light cameras, etc) said it wasn't secure in Chrome yet they asked for sensitive info. https://clerkweb.summitoh.net/PublicSite/CaseDetail.aspx?CaseNo=CV-2019-04-1369&Suffix=&Type= https://clerkweb.summitoh.net/PublicSite/CaseDetail.aspx?Cas... Then Facebook has a license in Ohio too since Messenger lets you send money to people over chat. https://www.facebook.com/payments_terms/licenses https://www.facebook.com/payments_terms/licenses So maybe that's one way they can claim power over Facebook. Looks like the last action on the case was 05/17/2019 where it was assigned to another judge. So wonder what the next steps are for this case, will be interesting to follow. I was just curious about ECOT yesterday since that's the school I did my final years of high school and was wondering about where people would get their transcripts if say for college... Looks like records were being transferred to the last known district of residence, but there's also an email if you need help getting them it looks. I'm guessing probably where you lived when you were last in school then, probably not where you are now if you moved since then. The Educational Service Center of Lake Erie West in Toledo was the sponsor of ECOT. http://www.esclakeeriewest.org/ECOTInformation.aspx http://www.esclakeeriewest.org/ECOTInformation.aspx Also looks like the server is at Franklin County courthouse, the judge there approved $300,000 to upgrade the server to preserve it, as the FBI is also looking into the school over the campaign contributions. Then the other big thing ECOT got in trouble over was the way of accounting attendance. https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190801/judge-approves-moving-ecot-records-to-new-computer-server https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190801/judge-approves-moving... I liked ECOT. If I needed to ask questions I could send a email(they had a fake email system, wouldn't go to external addresses) or even call up... I felt they cared a lot more compared to the last public school I went to. Actually got way better grades too. But someone else who went to ECOT after me felt a bit different, so maybe things changed more since I went. I wish we had more school choice in America, instead of the city school being the default. Wish more competition but I think schools in general feel threatened and enjoy having a monopoly on education. Then apparently it's easier to fire teachers at charter and private schools, so public school teachers can be lousy and have great job security. Also other schools could try and claim they lost money too because of this, but aren't part of the lawsuit... Wonder how that works in the future if say Facebook lost and ordered to pay which is split between the schools. Can the other schools join in on the lawsuit or would they need to file separately? Not sure if it's technically considered a class action, since usually you get a notice about the lawsuit to join it automatically if you do nothing with a date to submit a claim or you opt-out to then file your lawsuit or get nothing. Be interesting if these schools won, and then other schools sue for the same amount... Then would FB have to pay out twice the amount? Unless they are only considering what those schools believe they lost directly that was spent on ad money, and not the total lost statewide, as that would make more sense - but I think they want the total money spent at FB total not considering which schools the funds originally came from. As ECOT had students in all 88 counties across the state, so it sounds like other schools not part of this lawsuit might be leaving money on the table if FB is found in the wrong.