Facebook, you’ve gone too far.
Here’s a recent family photo, as seen in the photo album on my personal Facebook profile page:
And a close up, so you get the full (absurd) impact.
What ticks me off is that I’m the founder of The 3/50 Project, a consumer awareness campaign that educates customers about the importance of engaging with locally owned, independent brick and mortar merchants instead of always shopping at big boxes. Like Target.
Which is why having Target ads anywhere on my personal profile—let alone inside my photo albums—is wildly inappropriate.
I didn’t “like” the Target page—friends of mine did. That does not give Facebook or Target the right to turn my personal photos into billboards for big boxes I absolutely do not and will not endorse.
First, it was our newsfeeds, but now…my family photos? Seriously?
There needs to be a boundary somewhere.
Do you agree that this is out of bounds? If so, please spread the word by clicking the icons below to share this post.
Click here to tell me what you think....
Way wrong…I hope you’re able to get some kind of vindication
Define irony….. using a large corporation styled website to promote your small business projects free of charge. You agreed to this when you signed up. I agree with your perspective and use local businesses as much as possible but this is a small price to pay to spread the word.
They are losing ground on revenue because the smartphone apps don’t do adverts. The pay per click and pay per viewing ad revenue is taking a big hit. They are now sticking them everywhere they can on the PC version.
Editor’s Note:
“You agree to this when you signed up.”
At no time did I agree to any form of advertising on my family photos. I doubt the concept was a glimmer in Mr. Zuckerberg’s eye when I joined Facebook more than four years ago.
…”using a large corporation styled website to promote your small business….”
You bet. That was one of their strongest selling points to small businesses when The 3/50 Project began three and a half years ago.
The fact they’re crossing into my personal page to advertise large corporation is the issue here, however—not my belief in the original propositions they made to “us little guys.”
There are class actions pending against Facebook in California about this right now. California has a progressive law that prohibits the use of anyone’s likeness or name for marketing purposes without their specific permission. They’ve been sued by people who’s names are being used by these advertisers as having “liked” their page. I thought I had read that Facebook agreed to settle the case by stopping the practice but maybe that only relates to Californians.
According to the Privacy notices and settings on facebook this should not be occurring – see this link to their page on edit settings:
https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads
That said – yeah, it’s pretty crummy that they can use your stuff and then bury the way to prevent it. But it can be prevented, you just need to dig. Not a great way to do business, in my opinion…
Looks like those are the ads you are seeing when you look at your photos… meaning those ads are targeted to you… and they likely will change each time you go back in to view a given photo.
The real kicker is … what ads *other* people see when they are looking at your photos? You will never know… the ads may be geared toward the user’s profile and not necessarily context-relevant (in which case they could be seeing ads for political parties or businesses local to them or national businesses or schools or weight-loss pills or anything you can think of!).
AGREED! Completely inappropriate! They see the dollars and nothing more. Unfortunately, if they took two seconds to read your “about me” section, they too would realize they are barking up the wrong tree.
This is so wrong on every level! Facebook does have a way of burying things making it nearly impossible to change things.
I do feel that you are correct to be outraged but I feel that it is a fight you won’t win. There is no privacy online and to assume that what ever is posted won’t be used for foal play I think is naive now-a-days with all of the news about how sites such as these do not respect boundaries. I don’t post any personal information only business for that reason. Several of my friends have removed their pages completely including one of my daughters. She felt that they were invading privacy and I agree.
I endorse your fight and will be interested if you get support along with an ear at facebook.
I’d say this is the downside of what we’ve all accepted (or for some, been forced to accept) as part of the growth of Facebook. As a friend of mine likes to say, “if you don’t like it, then stop paying your monthly Facebook bill.”
I agree with John. There are always downsides to everything. Even me, personally, I always see those kind of things.. even when I’m peacefully looking at my friends’ photos. Wish there’s an option where we can turn off those things..