Facebook Inc. said Tuesday it has settled with the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations to the tune of $5 million after being accused of discriminatory practices related to ad placements.

A number of articles were published over the last two years relating to how Facebook enabled advertisers to exclude certain minorities from various ads, based on race, age and sex. The ads were often for housing, credit and employment.

Facebook later removed various ad-targeting features from its platform, but not after several complaints were filed. The company said that in light of the “historic settlement agreements” it has made, ending such discrimination a top priority.

“Our policies already prohibit advertisers from using our tools to discriminate,” said Facebook in a blog post. “We’ve removed thousands of categories from targeting related to protected classes such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. But we can do better.”

The company said that from now on, anyone wanting to run ads related to housing, jobs or credit will not be able to discriminate by age, gender or zip code. Advertisers in general will have far fewer targeting options, while any targeting options appearing to relate to “protected classes” will not be available.

Other changes in place are that all advertisers certify compliance with anti-discrimination laws. Facebook has agreed to implement an automated system and human review system to ensure such discrimination doesn’t occur and said it would study its algorithms for potential biases. Facebook will meet with the plaintiffs every six months for the next three years to make sure the system is working.

Indeed, the ACLU wrote in a post that the victory is an “historic” one, adding that other tech companies should now follow Facebook’s lead. It wrote that it took 18 months of settlement negotiations and many lawsuits, but it seems justice has prevailed.

“As the internet — and platforms like Facebook — play an increasing role in connecting us all to information related to economic opportunities, it’s crucial that micro-targeting not be used to exclude groups that already face discrimination,” said Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU.

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