http://www.blogcdn.com/www.downloadsquad.com/media/2009/07/gdge5y45y45y4.jpg
But it’s OK. Really!
See, according to Facebook it’s all part of the acceptable use policy you agreed to. No, I’m not kidding. That red box above contains an ad that was displayed to Peter Smith, who no doubt agrees that the woman in the image is hot – although he suspected she wasn’t single. You guessed it, that’s his wife - consultant Cheryl Smith.
Is this not the same Facebook that just went back and retooled a TOS that users found objectionable? Didn’t they just finish apologizing and kissing our butts over the crapstorm that ensued?
Here’s what the Facebook settings page has to say:
[INDENT]Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. These respect all privacy rules.[/INDENT]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. (note: when I tried to make this change just now, the site returned an error. oh, and it might not work in Firefox either due to a ‘bug.’)
I guess since we can turn this abomination off we shouldn’t get too worked up about it. Still, it’s pretty damn unsavory to use someone’s friend’s face to advertise a product and give the appearance that that friend might endorse it.
Yes, if it had been my wife’s face staring back at me I would have had a good laugh. And when I stopped, I would have been right pissed that Facebook thinks this qualifies as “acceptable use.”
[via End of Web]Facebook sez, “Don’t mind us, we’re just whoring out your photos” originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.