Your Photos Now Featured in Facebook Ads
This past Friday it surfaced that Facebook started including user profile photos in ads run with in the Facebook network. It’s widely known that if a product or service is vouched for by a close friend the liklihood that you’ll investigate and buy the product or use the service increases. The marketing and advertising folks at Facebook know their stuff and they’re taking full advantage of their terms of use to increase click through rates on ads and monetize their community.
What does this mean to you? It means if you don’t dig into the privacy settings and opt out of having your profile photo or perhaps other photos of yours used in ads, you could end up with your photo(s) next to an online dating service ad or perhaps something as awkward as a Viagra ad.
While many wondered why all the fuss about the photo unfriendly Facebook Terms of Use I hope you now understand. Facebook is an advertising engine looking to exploit trust between you and your network to maximize profits. The fact that they force you to opt-out versus opt-in to this type of system shows their true intentions contradicting past statements. As before if you use Facebook be aware and be diligent in checking to see what they’re up to and how they’re using your creative content.
Facebook Dating Ad Hooks Up Married Man … With His Wife – Mashable
Facebook sez, “Don’t mind us, we’re just whoring out your photos” – DownloadSquad
All you have to do to prevent this is sign in to Facebook and click through to (get ready) -> Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click “no one.” Unless, of course, you want to be semifamous and have your picture used to push some garbage product or website without your knowledge
Facebook reassures users in wake of service terms change – Breitbart
“”We wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” Zuckerberg said”
Technorati Tags: Facebook, Terms of Use, photography, social media
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Thanks Jim,
this has encouraged me to go and review my Facebook settings…
Amazing the “features” that get slipped in when you’re not expecting them…
Cheers,
Andrew
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Facebook is always up to something trying to exploit its users. Thanks for the heads up JIm. I have reviewied all my settings once again.
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Thanx – I forwarded your post to all my FB friends too.
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I tried going to the “appearance in Facebook ads” page just now, and I got message saying the page was down. If this happens, keep trying. I was able to get in a few minutes later and opt out of the ads.
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[...] http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2009/07/19/your-photos-now-featured-in-facebook-ads/ [...]
[...] Jim M. Goldstein’s blog, this is the series of steps required for you to All you have to do to prevent this is sign in to [...]
I just tried to go to that settings page, and the Facebook Ads sub page of privacy settings is a blank page. It has normal FB headers and footers, but no content.
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Jack Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
I got the same thing… Facebook is probably changing their settings right now so that they can somehow find a loop-hole in which we can’t opt out of their ad’s.
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no Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Turn off AdBlock.
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Jack Reply:
July 20th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Got it, thanks man.
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Interesting, thanks for the heads up!
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“”We wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want,” Zuckerberg said”
Right. Zuckerberg thinks that everyone on the planet is just waiting to suck his dick.
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[...] le condizioni d’uso che prevedono che Facebook sfrutti le vostre foto. Fortunatamente il sito JMG-Galleries suggerisce una procedura per evitare che Facebook usi le vostre foto per la pubblicità. Dopo il [...]
I’m sorry to say that this is exactly why I haven’t been using Facebook. A little too… I dunno. Sleazy?
People shouldn’t have to work so hard to keep themselves from being exploited.
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It’s not FB wide, just ads at the top of the page that say “who is smarter” and show a bunch of your friends.
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I have an odd feeling this won’t be the last terms of service change that will upset users…
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[...] Jim shows us yet another area that you need to ‘opt out’ of in his recent article: Your Photos Now Featured in Facebook Ads. [...]
wow, thanks for this, who knew ?!
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[...] però non desiderate che Facebook utilizzi le vostre foto vi è una soluzione: infatti il sito JMG-Galleries vi suggerisce una soluzione per evitare che vengano utilizzate le vostro [...]
I just tried to opt put and guess what! There was nothing under the facebook ads tab. I can’t opt out! SO i deleted my pics. who know what good that will do.
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[...] it has been revealed that Facebook is using its members’ profile pictures in their 3rd party advertisements. One member discovered this after recognizing his wife’s profile picture in a dating ad that [...]
Go check out what facebook had to say: http://bit.ly/Q3hHh
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Jim Reply:
August 14th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Thanks for the follow up link Jerry!
Here is the official Facebook response:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=110636457130
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Hi,
We just set up a new escort directory website.
I would really appreciate any and all feedback from the community.
Thanks!!!
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[...] social web, will make online browsing more convenient, others raise concerns about privacy and access to information on a regular base, specially if a company refuses to associate with Facebook, or take [...]