Surprisingly, I'm On Jan Brewer's Side As She Considers Lawsuit

A couple of the dubious web ads that
were placed using images of former Arizona
Gov. Jan Brewer. She's threatening to sue.  

I can't say I've ever been much of a fan of Jan Brewer.  But now she's threatening to sue an advertiser, and I'm totally rooting for her.

Brewer, you might remember, came under fire  (and was praised in other quarters) when she signed into law that required police to determine people they encountered whether they were in the United States illegally.  

She turned into a lightning rod with that one. But she later did not seek re-election and had largely faded from the spotlight.

Brewer cropped up again as the face on one of those annoying snake oil ads that appear on so many web sites.  Some show doctored "before and after" photos of Brewer after she'd gotten the purported company's wrinkle removing doohickey or whatever.

Brewer is 70 years old, and lives in sunny Arizona, so you don't expect her to look like a 20 year old.

Worse, Brewer never agreed to be the model for the ads. They company or ad agency just swiped the photos from the Internet.

The ad that pictures Brewer said she got the "revenge makeover" after her husband dumped her because she had gotten so "ugly"

"Divorced For Being So 'Old'" reads the ad's headline.

In reality, Brewer and her husband John have been happily married for nearly 50 years now.

Brewer told the Arizona Republic "It's obviously a very distorted and unflattering photo, and it's hurtful and it's wrong....I want whoeer is behind the use of this image to cease and desist and do so immediately, or it will leave me no option but to pursue legal recourse against them."  

I'm not linking to the Arizona Republic ad because of the hoops you have to go through to get to it, and because there's an autoplay, but the paper said RevContent and Content.ad placed the advertisements.

RevContent said it is not the orignator of the ad.

Content.ad said it is investigating the circumstances of the ad's placement, but will stop running it.

We'll see if there is eventually a Brewer lawsuit, but I'm behind her on this one.

It's one of many examples of advertisers using a person's likeness to peddle their (sometimes dubious) products, and it DOES have to stop.