The controversial marketing firm uSocial, which claims that it can sell 'fans' on various popular social networking sites to its customers for social media marketing, has been slapped with a cease and desist warning by the popular networking website Facebook. As confirmed by the marketing firm, which sells Twitter followers and recently started selling views on YouTube, it has been served by a warning from lawyers of Facebook.

The letter that uSocial has received from Facebook says that the marketing company has breached various laws, including accessing the website illegally. In its defense, uSocial has been quick to say that it has now "backed down" on selling "fans", and also is completely within its rights to indulge in this practice for marketing purposes.

"We have been dealing with Facebook regarding this matter and we have removed our friend-buying service, though we’re not budging on selling fans”, said uSocial chief executive, Leon Hill. “We are well within our legal right to do so and despite the C&D, we’re not taking the service down".

The Facebook issue is not the first problem that uSocial is facing in this respect. In 2008, the firm was slapped with a cease and desist letter from Digg as well.

But these things do not seem to be unnerving the net marketing company, which has announced that it will be taking the Facebook services it is offering to the next level real soon.