Facebook headquarters, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California. Photo: Shutterstock

Facebook has agreed to settle claims with a Philadelphia-based tattoo artist, who sued the company for allegedly failing to stop alleged scammers from using photos of her in weight loss ads.

According to an order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the parties in Oreto v. Facebook have recently agreed to settle the case. The one-page order, entered Monday, did not disclose anything about the settlement, but said the case should be dismissed because of the agreement.

A spokeswoman for Facebook declined to comment, and West Chester attorney Robert Axenfeld, who is representing plaintiff Kristel Oreto, did not return a request for comment.

Oreto's suit stems from allegations that the social media giant failed to investigate and stop diet supplement advertisers from using her weight loss photos in advertisements that she contends are scams. The failures, she argued, violated the Lanham Act, and damaged her reputation. Along with seeking an injunction, she has also asked for punitive damages.

According to her complaint, Oreto is a famous tattoo artist, who became “an inspiration to many struggling with weight gain,” after she lost about 120 pounds through exercise and better eating habits.

Beginning in 2017, photos of her weight loss progress began to appear in ads posted on the site, some of which included statements endorsing the products that were attributed to her, she said in the complaint. She contended that she notified the company several times, but the company delayed in taking the ads down, and failed to stop the advertisers from using her image.

She filed her suit in Pennsylvania federal court, contending that the forum selection agreement was “unreasonable and unjust” because it had been buried in the terms of use and could only be accessed after filling out multiple pages and following a hyperlink to the agreement. The complaint also noted the agreement contained 37 screen-lengths on the mobile device that she had signed up on.

In its response filed Sept. 7, Facebook contended that the suit must be transferred to the Northern District of California.

The company's response disputed how complicated accessing the terms of use allegedly is, and contended that Oreto never said she hadn't read the terms of use. Facebook's terms of use designate California as the venue for any disputes clearly and reasonably, and Oreto had clearly agreed to them, the company contended.

“Because Facebook's terms were visible and hyperlinked in blue, and assented to by clicking the sign up button, plaintiff has failed to show that the Facebook terms were inconspicuous and thus unenforceable,” Michele Hangley of Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller said in the filing.

Oreto responded, saying there were several similarities between accessing Facebook's terms of use and accessing Uber's terms, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said in its June ruling in Cullinane v. Uber Technologies had been inadequate.