No ban on selfies with Obama: White House

 The White House has ruled out ban on selfies with US President Barack Obama after a recent cellphone photo was used for advertising purposes.

"There's no discussion of a ban," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters yesterday.

Carney was responding to questions on a recent comment made by a senior White House official about banning Obama's selfies. The White House Press Secretary described that such a comment was made in humour.

"He (the White House official) was saying, I think humorously that the end of all selfies -- and I don't think he just meant the White House," Carney said adding that the White House would speak to Samsung in this regard.

"We have a standing approach to issues like this when the President's image is used for commercial purposes. I think Dan (David Ortiz, the White House official) spoke about the fact that White House Counsel had been in communication with her counterpart at Samsung," Carney said.

"I don't have any more details on that but we believe this issue will be resolved and we've taken the same approach on this matter as we have when we’ve had similar incidents or cases when the President's image has been used for commercial purposes," he said.

Though, he said Obama was not aware of it.

"The President obviously didn't know that there was a Samsung play here, if you will.  But we’re not treating this any differently than we did in the past when there was a matter concerning the use of the President’s likeness for commercial purposes," he said.