Short take-away - Plaintiffs may sue under the Unruh Civil Rights Act alleging racial and age-based discrimination based upon ads Facebook does or does not show
The First District, Division Three has reinstated a class action suit against Facebook alleging violations of California's Unruh Civil Rights Act. (Liapes v. Facebook (Sept. 29, 2023) A164880) Facebook, of course, requires users to reveal their age and gender and then offers advertisers the ability to target advertisements based on data that includes such. Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit alleging, inter alia, that they were offered certain advertisements for insurance based on their age but were denied seeing other advertisements based on these criteria; indeed, advertisers had no choice but to select the preferred age and gender of users and, moreover, Facebook decides whom to target with a particular ad based on algorithms that rely on age and gender.
After the trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint, plaintiffs appealed. The First District found the plaintiffs had properly plead a violation of California law, assuming arguendo that the allegations in the complaint were true:
Liapes satisfied these requirements [of the Unruh Civil Rights Act]. As a Facebook user, she has transacted with it. It knows her age and gender because all users must provide such information as a condition of joining Facebook. Liapes was interested in . . . obtaining life insurance because she did not have a policy at the time. . . . But Facebook, Liapes alleged, used its Audience Selection tool, Lookalike Audience feature, and ad-delivery algorithm to exclude her from receiving certain insurance ads because of her gender and/or age.
The alleged injury is not conjectural or hypothetical. Liapes identified a life insurance ad that was only sent to males ages 30 to 49 because the advertiser used the Audience Selection tool. (Id., pp. 9-10; citations omitted.)
Given that this class action suit takes direct aim at the business model of Facebook (Meta) it is likely that further judicial review and/or legislation will follow. Facebook could, of course, settle this suit but it may face similar suits in other jurisdictions based upon the theory that targeted ads violate Civil Rights laws.
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