Lawsuit Alleges Classmates.com Used Illinois Residents’ Photos Without Permission

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A proposed class action alleges the operator of Classmates.com has violated an Illinois privacy law by using state residents’ yearbook photos in subscription product advertisements without their permission.

According to the 18-page case, defendant PeopleConnect, Inc. has misappropriated consumers’ photographs as children without their consent and displayed them on Classmates.com in order to entice users into purchasing subscriptions to the website’s full database of yearbook and other information.

The lawsuit alleges that proposed class members, i.e., those who the lawsuit looks to cover, had neither a previous relationship with PeopleConnect nor knowledge that their photographs as children were being used to promote the company’s commercial interests. Moreover, PeopleConnect provides no method through which consumers can request that their pictures and personal information be removed from Classmates.com or opt out of the use of their photographs in the company’s advertisements, the case claims.

“Plaintiff and the Class have never used Classmates.com, nor did they provide their names, photographs, or any other personal information to PeopleConnect,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff was seriously distressed to discover that PeopleConnect is using decades-old photographs of Plaintiff and the Class as children to advertise paid subscriptions to Classmates.com.”

Per the case, the Illinois Right of Publicity Act prohibits the use of a resident’s name, voice, photograph, image, likeness and persona for commercial purposes without their consent.

The lawsuit explains that PeopleConnect operates Classmates.com, an online database of yearbook photographs and personal information to which visitors can obtain access by purchasing a subscription. Per the suit, when a non-subscriber visits Classmates.com and performs a search of a person’s name, they are shown low-resolution photos that purport to match the searched individual. If the visitor clicks to view higher resolution photos or more than two low-resolution photos, they are prompted to purchase a paid subscription to Classmates.com for $3 a month, the case relays. According to the complaint, Classmates.com also places advertisements next to proposed class members’ photographs, promoting subscriptions “for as low as $1.23 a month.”

The lawsuit claims that Classmates.com “knowingly mislead[s] the public” into believing that the people in photographs willingly provided their information and pictures to the defendant for advertising purposes. The suit argues, however, that proposed class members have no relationship with PeopleConnect and never provided their consent for their photographs as minors to be used in connection with Classmates.com advertising.

According to the case, the defendant has misappropriated consumers’ photographs and “received no indication” from the yearbook publishers or authors that the content of the yearbooks was intended to be published on the internet or used in advertising.

“Plaintiff’s yearbooks were originally produced decades ago when the Internet was in its infancy,” the complaint attests. “Plaintiff and the Class did not consent to the commercial use of their photographs to promote a website through worldwide distribution of their photographs on the Internet.”

The lawsuit looks to represent current and former Illinois residents who are not Classmates.com subscribers and whose names, photographs, and/or personal information were extracted from yearbooks by PeopleConnect and incorporated into the database used by the defendant to promote Classmates.com subscriptions.

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