Facebook Lets Ads Steal Your Profile Photos To Sell Crap To Your Friends
The internet has woken up to the fact that Facebook can steal photos from your profile page and use them in ads targeted at your friends.
We first reported on this on June 24th in the case of reader Rob who was invited on Facebook to meet hot singles who were waiting for him. The Facebook ad used a picture of his wife in the picture. Now a front-page Reddit story and people on Facebook itself are spreading the news about the privacy concern and making a stink.
To opt out, you can just go here and select "no one." Or to do it from within Facebook, click settings -> privacy -> news feeds and wall -> facebook ads. If you have Ad-block, you have to disable it to do the opt out, as ad-block considers it also an ad.
The ads themselves are not served by Facebook but by third-party companies exploiting a part of the application platform which lets app developers see all the friends of a user who has added the app, even if that user's friends haven't themselves added the app.
In the description, Facebook says, "Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends," but what it should really say is "Facebook Ads slap your picture on stupid IQ test and dating site ripoffs."
When endofweb.co.uk noticed this issue and asked Facebook for a response, Facebook said they were in the process of investigating the deceptive ads and getting them shut down. David Swain, of the Product and Platform Communications department. at Facebook said, "It's an important issue, and one we take seriously."
[Reddit]
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Comments:
Facebook came and took ma piccys!
Atleast they give the option to tell them no, though.
Hey consumerist,
I sent you a number about 2 months ago for a Judy (wong?) at facebook advertising. This would be something to call her about ;)
Wow. That is creepy that an option like that is well hidden in their settings. Make sure you disable any ad blockers, e.g. Ad Blocker Plus, as it thinks it is an ad.
The adds are only shown to your friends on Facebook. They aren't used anywhere else.
However, a friend of mine did get an add for "singles" in his area and they used his girlfriend's profile pic. Kinda funny, actually.
What happens if you don't see those options listed?
One of my friends had this in her Facebook status today. Facebook bores me and I hate having to keep abreast of all their stupid privacy loopholes. The only reason I still have an account is because I know that one day I'll value that network, but I really wish that Facebook didn't damn near have a monopoly over online social networking.
@Adam Reimer: I would rather have image errors than some advertisement telling me about hot single guys in my area then showing a picture of my son! Bring on the errors, I say!
@Adam Reimer: My Red-X costume is awesome, mind you. Very realistic. I'm glad everyone on my facebook gets to see it.
FYI, that setting only appears for those using IE and not Firefox.
@aguacarbonica: There's always My-godlookatalltheshitonthispagelolitsgoingtocrashmybrowserggcsshackers-Space.
Facebook = Failbook
@Wolzard: You can, sure, but the it's not like they don't use those pictures in the ads. It just means you can't see them.
@Applekid: I was shooting for:
My-"God look at all the shit on this page lol it's going to crash my browser gg css hackers"-Space, but the aborted string with dots actually produces a more accurate representation of MySpace.
Facebook advertising really is a tar pit of spammy irrelevance. My girlfriend has been getting "Meet Singles Now!" ads for days on end with pictures of her guyfriends on there. Even the ones that are listed as "In a Relationship". Urg.
@ugadawg:
Be sure to disable any script/ad blocking add-ons before attempting to adjust this setting. Just like all of Facebook, that page is Firefox friendly.
You know, I recently found out through Photobuckets stat page that someone is using an image of me on facebook, myspace, and craigslist. Talk about creepy.
Actually, this should be said: Those ads are not served by facebook. Those ads are served by a third-party company (E.G: rockyouads, ect).
In all applications, even if your friends havent added that app, the developers of the application can still see the friends of that user.
So all they have to do is pull that array of friends, and then use FBML (FaceBook Markup Language) in the iframe to display the picture using fb:photo. E.G would display the photo of the user with the id of 12345.
So it's not facebook themselves, its the application platform being exploited by ad-serving companies.
You know, this happened to me about a month ago. Facebook showed me a photo of one of the "HOT SINGLES" I could meet if I clicked on an ad for a dating service... The "hot single" was a COUSIN of mine from my friends list.. YIKES!
This is one of those times that being (ex) Amish comes in handy. Photos were invented to steal your soul, and I don't do photos, online or off. Nevertheless, I lack nothing, except perhaps I get fewer replies to my Craigslist dating posts - lol.
This is why my facebook profile has exactly one photo on it and it will stay that way.
Whoa! Deja Vu! @HumungaCowabunga_GitEmSteveDave: But that makes you famous! Enough with your shenanigans.
@Nogard13: I got a picture of a married friend. In her WEDDING DRESS. Sticking her tongue out at the camera. It cracked me up.
Yet another reason to only put bogus info on facecrook.
I bet 99% of the people on it don't even have a clue how much of their personal info is given away every time they install an app. I give it another 2 years before we really start seeing the abuse that an app developer can do with the data they receive for making someone a mafia member or a picture of a diamond.
@HumungaCowabunga_GitEmSteveDave: Meow I was not talking about the shenanigans picture. I was talking in general :)
Side Note: I got both Airplane! and Super Troopers from netflix today. Will be a lulzy weekend.
Am I the only person in the world who doesn't have a problem with this? Facebook is free so obviously it is going to have ads. It's clever, and just good sense, to use the data they have on you to tailor ads to you. Google and Amazon do the same thing with their personalized ads and suggestions.
It 's extremely obvious that the ad company is attempting to manipulate you into clicking their ads- and they're doing a really poor job because it doesn't even make sense to put a picture of your wife in an ad for hot singles. Drop the pretense of shock and horror- we all recognize these ads for what they are, lame attempts at marketing, and we all ignore them. They're harmless, and probably a waste of money.
I don't feel entitled to any sort of "rights" when I knowingly upload my information and pictures to a free, public, website... If you don't like it don't use it. Honestly I'm surprised that they even give you the option to disable it, and personally I won't bother.
@MostlyHarmless: Sweet. I have Airplane! on DVD, but got Super Troopers on "netflix". It's also where I got Transformers 2 from. ;)
@reuvenb: Ummm....I corrected it myself before posting this thank you. No one came up with a reply. I tried modifying the setting last night but no dice. Tried this morning on my work PC. No dice again. Then I figured it must be an IE v Firefox thing. Loaded FB in IE and ta-da. Check the time stamps before making an assumption.
@aguacarbonica:
A monopoly??? Are you kidding me, this is like accusing Google of being a monopoly. Myspace had its chance and failed. How is Facebook forcing you to be on facebook? You can always go to myspace. If you dont like it, dont use it. Simple. I dislike facebook too, mainly because of what it does to my friend making them facebook junkies. But I dont complain about having the ability to share photos and chat with my friend.
I just got one of these with my sister's FB profile pic yesterday.
Thing is, I couldn't read it because it was in Turkish.
Neither my sister nor I speak Turkish. We do not have Turkish heritage. We've never even been to Turkey. (Although I get Turkish spam all the time.)
(Hmmm... "Turkish spam" sounds like a food dish.)
Why'd you cut the bulk of the post? I can see it all in my GReader... there's useful information in what you cut.
you should change your facebook status and watch how the adds change
@highpitch_83
AND this hit Consumerist..... i think a month ago.. they are just re-reporting it....
or maybe it was another Gawker site.. either way.. they were ahead of the loop
@aguacarbonica: I know people who spend WAY too much time updating their Facebook status.
But on the other hand, I've tracked down old friends that I thought were pretty much lost forever, so it does have it's cool moments.
They don't just use photos of your friends. I had one ad with a picture of my ex, who hasn't been a Facebook friend in over a year. The caption: " thinks your an idiot?"
Sleeze -- I thought I notified Consumerist a couple of months ago about this, but it might have been Jezebel
In Canada there is some concern about the default facebook settings. Our privacy laws are not bad (at times) and I kind of agree that there are issues with the default settings. [www.cbc.ca]
Sorry if anyone has posted this already...
@aguacarbonica: That's a good point! How did people "social network" before facebook? I guess people could leave their house, and actually talk to a live person...Ugh.
This can be disabled in your privacy settings.