Facebook Using YOUR Face for Ads - July 15th, 2009
[UPDATE]: Facebook has since responded to me regarding this issue, see that post for updates.
Image: Culture Smith Consulting
“Peter” in this case is the Facebook user logged in to his account. The woman in the “Hot Singles” ad is his own wife. According to Facebook, these ads “respect all privacy rules.” Personally, I think it’s just a nice obvious bit of proof that Facebook is truly sleezy under all the pretty blue makeup. Luckily there is a quick and easy opt-out for this nonsense, steps follow.
You’re automatically opted-in by Facebook
That’s right, you have to actually go into your settings to turn this off. Your face may have already been used to advertise any number of things to the people on your friends-list. Here’s how to do it:
- Highlight Settings at the top of the page, click Privacy Settings
- Click News Feed and Wall
- Hit the tab for Facebook Ads
- There should be a drop-down menu here, select “No One”
Firefox Users:Some Firefox users are unable to see a drop-down menu. This is a bug, and you’ll have to use a different browser.
Cheryl Smith was good enough to post this discovery to her blog when she was alerted by her (thankfully) good-humored husband.
15 Responses:
Thanks for this. I despise FB’s advertising tactics.
Note: The hack works with fine Firefox 3.5.
thank you so much for this piece of information, it has been very useful and I have already opted-out.
I’ll spread the word!!!!
Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for posting this. I just did a translation of how to NOT let Facebook use your data in the Danish version of Facebook. And included a link to your story!
http://www.hovedetpaabloggen.dk/2009/07/16/sadan-undgar-du-at-facebook-bruger-dit-ansigt-i-reklamer/
You seem to be accusing Facebook of using photos in adverts widely – in fact, if you read the page – they use your photo with ads appearing with YOUR FRIENDS only. Hence the chap saw his wife advertising singles.
It’s not as if his wife would or could appear advertising singles on random other profiles of people not connected to him.
So, calm down, it’s only between friends.
Another way in which this is used is to scrape the user’s birthdate and use that to suggest that you get your eyes lasered before your 4xth birthday (in my case!) – information which could only have been scraped by this mechanism.
rtfs,
I didn’t imply anything, in fact, if you read this page – I even stated that this takes place within friends’ networks:
So you’d be ok with your friends seeing your face on ads for local singles, or Viagra, or some get rich quick scheme? I’ve seen some seedy ads on Facebook, to the point that I really don’t think they bother screening them more than simply checking for outright pornography. On top of that, many people have upwards of 100 friends; I’ve seen accounts with a thousand before, it’s not out of place. How is it in any way acceptable that the friends and family of a married couple see the wife’s face displayed on ads for “hot local singles?”
Maybe you only have 4 friends on Facebook and wouldn’t be adversely affected by something like this, but most other people have a bit more going on than that.
@JohnB – hasn’t this always been done? It’s not scraping as such, the data is readily provided by Facebook so that ads can be targeted.
Excellent article. This just proves the point that was in the Canadian news: they are breaking our privacy laws. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/ottawa-takes-on-social-media-giant-for-violating-canadas-law/article1220428/
I know that technically they might not have to listen, but maybe if enough people speak up they will?
Matthew, I work with Facebook and wanted to clarify a few things. Most importantly, these ads are not from Facebook. Similar to your post, several weeks ago, we received some reports of deceptive content in ads placed within apps by developers working with third party ad networks. While these ads are from external providers, we are concerned about any potential threat to our users’ experience. We recently had deceptive ads removed from a number of apps and prohibited two entire advertising networks from providing services to applications on Facebook Platform because they were not compliant with our policies and failed to correct their advertising practices.
We are continuing to investigate to make sure ads that violate our policies stay off Facebook and may take further action against developers who host the ads.
It’s an important issue, and one we take seriously.
David
David,
That’s extremely good to hear, and yet I can’t help but ask why this sort of information doesn’t get pushed to your users. I know I’m not the only person (as evidenced by the twitter-traffic) that feels the way I do about your company’s advertising practices. Ads are expected, and only a fool would think to complain about reasonable advertisements on a site that provides services free of charge. That doesn’t make the ads any less gaudy, or even flat-out offensive.
User-data is expected to be used for marketing, but not the users themselves. I very seriously doubt that Facebook thought this practice honorable to begin with, or they wouldn’t have done it so stealthily. In fact several people have mentioned to me that they would have opted in had they been given the option, if only for the entertainment value in having their faces displayed on ads that would otherwise be completely non sequitur. Since this was not the case, the overall opinion I’m getting is that your users think less of your company now than they did before.
I would think that after the recent debacle over the ownership of user-data that Facebook would tread more lightly. Using someone’s visage without their informed consent, with the goal of making a profit (whether it be for Facebook or an affiliate), is nothing short of dirty. People usually get paid for that sort of thing, and at the very least they’re told about it first.
I sincerely hope that what you’ve said about your company is true, and I mean that. I think it’s great that you came here to respond the way you did. Thank you.
-Matthew
endofweb.co.uk » Facebook’s Response to Uproar Over Ads • July 18th, 2009 at 13:24
[...] received a lot of attention in the three days since I posted about their use of users’ profile pictures in ads. Numerous blogs have covered the story since, including both DownloadSquad and Mashable, which [...]
wow, I did not even realise Facebook did that. kinda scary. I will need to actually need read the privacy policy now.
Thanks for this article, I will spread the word to those I know.
P.S. I also like how you have tagged this article as 'fail'
My profile photo was just used in one of there dating ad's and thankfully found out and opted out. Its really sick that they are doing this and if you're face is your image brand which mine is as a musician they can tarnish your reputation. Same goes for Podcasters, writers, etc.
Thanks for posting this and Facebooks response. I use Safari but I will absolutely jump on the Firefox unable to opt out bandwagon. I'm sure Facebook intended that!
endofweb.co.uk » Facebook: “Misleading Rumors” About Ads • July 29th, 2009 at 17:57
[...] of reassurance to paranoid individuals, but to me it looks like a blatant insult to anyone aware of the original issue, as well as a statement calling myself and many other people [...]