Is it Illegal to sell Facebook Likes?

WillyPete

WillyPete

New member
Oct 30, 2011
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Boston
I recently bought a site on flippa that sells Facebook likes, Twitter Followers, Google +1's and YouTube views. I basically am the middle man and outsource each order to either Fiverr or Freelancer. I was contacted last week from a Law Firm called Perkins Coie LLP and they said I had to immediately take down the website and facebook fan page I created for it as it was in violation of Facebook. They copied all of my email addresses as well as home address on the PDF attachment and said I would be permanently banned from FB if i did not take any action. Is this even a violation or illegal?

So I deleted the FB fan page and it said it will take 14 days before it is officially removed. I disabled the FB page on my website so no one can place any orders. Since this was a recent purchase from flippa I do not have the hosting/domain account in my name yet. The seller sent me the admin rights to the site and that was about it. I replied to the Law Firm on Wednesday of last week and have not received a response. Does anyone have any input on this or have any related stories? Any help would be great.

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that is their official law firm 100%. ive seen many a spammers get letters from them. they r srs business.

does the domain/site you bought have have the words Likes / FB / Facebook in it?
 
No the domain does not have anything along those lines. It is best social boosts but all one word. If I'm allowed to post that here? If not ill delete it.

I am not spamming or anything. I literally just got started and only outsource my orders through fiverr or forums. I did create a Facebook Fan page for my site but have since deleted it. Do you think that is what directed them to it?

This is included in the PSF attachment. Which isn't really true as I am just outsourcing it and do not have multiple FB accounts or anything.

"Specifically, you sell mass Facebook Page likes (“fans”), and in
the course of delivering your service, have utilized Facebook user accounts to “like” pages
without their consent. These activities, including the monetization of "likes" on Facebook on
and through your website, bestsocialboosts.com, are prohibited by Facebook’s Statement and
may violate state and federal laws prohibiting the initiation and sending of spam as well as the
unauthorized access of` protected computers."

Since there are so many sites like mine and users offering the same services why am I one of the ones singled out? Any advice and or similar stories would be great. Thanks
 
I can see why they would not want you to sell Facebook likes but if you are asking if this is illegal, it's along the border lines. I think you would need to consult with an attorney to find out - they would know if it was illegal or not.
 
Thanks. I had a friend who is a lawyer in Boston read it as I am in California but said it wasn't really worth the time and effort to fight and should be compliant with the California law. Since they found my Fan page on FB and told me to delete it, which I did, do you think they will still threaten my personal FB account? Say I have the Fan page completely deleted but I still run the website, the website has nothing to do with my FB account. Would it be safe to say my FB account would still be deleted?
 
What the fuck?! What is happening to the world where something that has no monetary value is being sold and considered "illegal"? And how can lawyers have the audacity to tag this as spam?

Surely if you said, fine, fucking do one - ban me cunts. Then beyond that surely they have no actual punishment to serve and it would have no legal repercussions? (I genuinely don't know, I'm not trolling for once.)

I would like to strike them down with great vengeance and furious anger.
 
as a rule - don't use your personal FB account to create fan pages - rather create another account with a dummy persona, and use this for your IM stuff - that way, when you get hauled over the coals for a violation, at least your personal account is not at risk.

Also, use a private domain registration to hide your personal details

My guess is that they got onto you as a result of the FB fan page selling likes ...
 
WillyPete said:
Sorry if this is posted in the wrong area. New to WF and looking for feedback.
Click to expand...

I think the "don't shit where you eat comment" was in reference to your fb fan page.

You're doing something against their TOS and advertising that violation on their site.
 
It's not illegal, but it's against facebook's TOS (see "they can and will below")

Write the law firm a nice letter and tell them you are sorry you made a mistake. Ask them what you have to do to keep your facebook account. If they ban you you are done for there (sort of) forever. It's their playground and only people they let in can play there.
Since Facebook is domiciled in California, as you are, you are extra screwed if they fight you in court, and they can and will spend more money than you have on lawyers.

Switch the registration offshore to a registrar who will really conceal the ownership. Any of the registrars in the US or Canada will give you up in a mosquito's wingflap when they get a letter from a lawyer.
Same with the hosting.

Then start working on building up the PR selling stuff related to twitter google+ and youtube.
When you get the PR good, flip it for big bucks to somebody who thinks you are dumb for not making the killing he thinks he's gonna make with facebook.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. I received the email from their lawyers last Monday and replied via Email on Wednesday. Its now been a week and I haven't heard anything. I was going to follow up with an email and then also write them a letter. Any other suggestions would be great
 
webdesignsbyapw said:
I can see why they would not want you to sell Facebook likes but if you are asking if this is illegal, it's along the border lines. I think you would need to consult with an attorney to find out - they would know if it was illegal or not.
Click to expand...

well if you're asking if it's in the country's constitution or federal law, no it's not.

It's in their terms of service in all liklihood.

Its a crappy thing to do to be honest, if people spam the likes in masse then their "like" feature loses value. It ruins their brand too.

WHy you're being singled out? it's too costly to take everyone out, whose to say that they're not taking action against others? also they will make an example out of one to send the message home to everyone else.

First mistake you mad was buy a website from flippa, that shithole is full of banned adsense sites, sandboxed seo projects, or projects that did not yield any returns so they inflate their earnings statements and sell it on.

I remember one site where I was made like $50 bucks a week and I was no1. I went of flippa to buy a aged domain and some guy whose #14 clearly getting no traffic claimed to be making $200 a week on it. His income proof was his adsense, pepperjam network and shareasale statements (which was the overall report, not for the specific site).

Next mistake you made was invest money on a site that had a limited shelf life. +1 destryoed the voting rings by eliminating fake accounts and nullifying their votes.

The other services could easily put measures that will destroy your business.
 
Guys just 2 hrs back i published a site like2earn.in which is almost similar to this concept but in my site the likers are real people who wish to like the page of page owner to get paid the page owner sets some amount that he wish to pay for each of his like and we deliver it to likers.I do not spam each and every user is registered to site only through fb register is anything problematic with the site that would drag me into problems Im ready to halt it if any problems are with it.

Im really really afraid now please reply me soon...
 
This is a really big gray area that you in right now. Its not illegal but it is potentially violating the TOS of fb. if these lawyers are legitimate then it is probably going to be in your best interest to cut your losses. No point in dealing with a huge headache.
 
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