Ancestry.com Use of Photos for Advertising Without Consent Indiana Class Action

Ancestry.com, Inc. and two related companies sell subscriptions for access to the Ancestry.com website, and the complaint for this class action alleges that, to promote its subscriptions, it uses the names and personalities of unrelated persons, without their consent. The complaint claims that this is a violation of an Indiana Right of Publicity law that forbids the misappropriation of other people’s names and likenesses.

The class for this action is all Indiana residents who are not Ancestry.com subscribers and whose names and yearbook photographs Ancestry uses to promote website subscriptions.

According to the complaint, Ancestry.com uses photos of people not related to its website promote its subscriptions, using them in three ways.

First, the complaint claims that Ancestry.com offers visitors a publicly-accessible landing page where they can look enter a name and location to look for a person. Ancestry.com then comes up with yearbook photos showing names and faces, the complaint says, along with exhorting visitors to “Sign Up Now” for a subscription. The accompanying text says that “There’s more to see” about the person, including higher-resolution photos and more personal information.

Second, if visitors or users have given Ancestry.com their email addresses but have not yet signed up for a paid subscription, the complaint claims that the company sends them promotional emails and on-site messages that may make use of the names and personalities of the unrelated persons.

“For example,” the complaint alleges, “Ancestry sends promotional emails to non-paying users with the subject line, ‘What should you explore next for [[person’s name]]?’” If the recipient of the email clicks the person’s name in the email, to view more records about her, receive a webpage telling them to subscribe to Ancestry.com.

Third, the complaint claims, Ancestry offers a two-week free trial membership that allows access to its full range of services. The users may then “search for, view, print, and share” photographs of the unrelated persons as minors, the complaint says, along with personal information such as the city they live in. According to the complaint, Ancestry’s sole purpose in the use of the persons’ photos and personal information is “to solicit the purchase of paid memberships.”

By using the photos and information, the complaint alleges, “Ancestry misleads the consuming public into believing [the persons] are Ancestry.com users, willingly uploaded their personal information to Ancestry.com, and endorse Ancestry’s subscription product.” In fact, however, the complaint asserts that the persons “have no relationship with Ancestry, had no knowledge their names and photographs were being used, and do not approve of Ancestry’s use of their names and likenesses to advertise Ancestry.com subscriptions.”

The complaint alleges that the people in the pictures “did not consent to the commercial use of their photographs to promote a website, nor to the worldwide distribution of their photographs on the Internet.”

It adds, “Indiana law recognizes the intellectual property and privacy rights of individuals in controlling the use of their names, photographs, likenesses, and personalities for commercial purposes.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Advertising, Use of Identity for Advertising, Using Your Picture For Commercial Gain, Using Your Private Information Without Consent, Your Privacy