Monday, September 24, 2007

Virgin Mobile: taking advantage of teenage girls

Virgin Mobile took a girl's photo off of Flickr and used it in a series of ads with titles like "dump the pen pal" and "free virgin to virgin." (Get it?) It didn't, of course, ask for her permission, or inform her that it was doing so. The girl's parents are suing, arguing that she has a right to privacy. Apparently any photo on Flickr is under the Creative Commons license and can be used for anything, even an ad campaign. Watch what you put on there! Whether or not Virgin Mobile is actually breaking the law, it sure is being monumentally insulting. How would you like to have your face plastered on billboards with a caption that makes fun of you?

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