Here’s why it’s legal for Google and Facebook to use your face in ads

Facebook puts your profile picture in advertisements. Google is about to do the same and other sites like Twitter will likely follow one day. How exactly is this legal? What if you don’t want to be in an ad: can the companies use your picture anyway? The short answer is yes. But as to whether any other company can do so, no. This is because under American state privacy laws, there is a “right of publicity” that allows you to control public displays of your image. However, you cannot sue Facebook or Google for using your image because you agreed to this in the terms of service when signing up for an account. The companies also reserve the right to make any changes to their policies from time to time.