By now pretty much everyone you know should be on Facebook, or at least on some kind of social media platform. In fact it’s quite rare these days to find someone not on social media. That being said, there is a tool created by Facebook called the friend finder. Basically this uses your email contacts (after you grant it permission) and sends out invites to those who don’t have Facebook accounts.
We’ve seen this happen on other apps and services before and it’s really nothing new, but it seems that over in Germany, the country’s high courts aren’t a huge fan of the feature, and in a recent ruling have actually found that the tool is unlawful and actually constitutes as advertising harassment.
Facebook’s friend finder tool actually ran into some legal trouble several years ago and two lower courts in Germany ruled similarly, but unsurprisingly Facebook had contested it but it looks like the high courts are in agreement with the previous rulings. They have also concluded that this is a deceptive marketing practice.
According to Klaus Mueller, the head of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations whose organization filed the case back in 2010, “What the judgment means exactly for the current Friends Finder, we now have to find out. In addition to Facebook, other services use this form of advertising to attract new users. They must now probably rethink.” Facebook on their end have said that they will wait for the formal decision and study the findings to see if there is any impact on its services.