Updated at 2:55 pm PT on 10/31/19 with comment from a Facebook spokesperson.

Some of the plaintiffs lawyers who reached a sweeping settlement with Facebook Inc. earlier this year that forced changes in how the company allows advertisers to target promotions for housing, employment and credit opportunities sued the company again claiming it still allows advertisers for financial services to discriminate against women and older users.

Facebook in March agreed to create a separate portal for advertisers hoping to publish housing, employment and credit advertisements, or HEC, on Facebook, Instagram or Messenger as part of deal to settle multiple civil rights suits brought across the country.

On Thursday lawyers who had been involved in the earlier litigation—a group including counsel from Outten & Golden, Handley Farah & Anderson, Aqua Terra Aeris Law Group and the Law Office of William Most—filed suit against Facebook in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that the company violates California's Unruh Civil Rights Act. The complaint maintains that the company continues to allow advertisers for financial services besides credit products—services including bank accounts, insurance, financial services consulting and investment—to exclude women and older people from receiving promotions.

"Due to Facebook's discriminatory practices, millions of older and female Facebook users have been denied the opportunity to receive valuable advertisements about financial services opportunities that advertisers sent to younger persons and men, and to pursue those financial services opportunities within and outside of Facebook," wrote the plaintiffs lawyers, led by Outten & Golden's Peter Romer-Friedman. "As a result, Facebook intentionally denied its own users the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and services of Facebook, and it aided and abetted numerous financial services companies in denying Facebook's users the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and services of those financial services companies," they wrote.

The suit seeks to certify a class of women and people over 40 who use Facebook that were excluded by financial services advertisers over the past three years, aside from those who informed Facebook that they didn't want to receive financial services ads. The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring Facebook from allowing financial services advertisers to exclude women and older users going forward and disgorgement of any profits from ads that allowed companies to exclude women and older people.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company is reviewing the complaint. "We've made significant changes to how housing, employment and credit opportunities are run on Facebook and continue to work on ways to prevent potential misuse," the spokesperson said in an email. "Our policies have long prohibited discrimination and we're proud of the strides we're making in this area."

Romer-Friedman said in a phone interview Thursday that the plaintiffs team has been monitoring Facebook's advertising practices over the past three years. He said the company has eliminated the ability for advertisers to target ads in a discriminatory manner for credit products since September, but the same is not true for other financial services products.

"There's a much broader range of financial services being advertised on Facebook aside from credit where there appear to be no rules," Romer-Friedman said. "We're not talking about shampoo, here. We're talking about things that matter to whether people can have economic opportunity."

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