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Facebook has closed the door on one opportunity to make money off the popular social network. Mark Zuckerberg's enterprise has settled a lawsuit, before it reached class-action status, over unwanted text messages being delivered to reused mobile-phone numbers. Lindsey Abrams, the Indiana woman who filed the suit, alleged she received thousands of unsolicited messages at a cost of 10 cents each after purchasing a mobile phone with a number previously owned by a Facebook user. She had no way to stop the unwanted messages, since she didn't have access to that user's account.

As part of the settlement, Facebook will make it easier to block unwanted text messages when received and will work with telephone carriers to monitor the lists of telephone numbers that have been recycled. I think Facebook got off cheap. With $300 million in the piggy bank, Zuckerberg could have sprung for a year of free text messages for Abrams.