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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
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 ANALYSIS 
13

Facebook Crosses Line on Privacy ... Again

Recognize that face in an ad? It could be your friend—or you.

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(Newser) – Imagine Peter Smith’s surprise when an ad for “hot singles” on Facebook featured a picture of … his wife. The site blames that flap on a third-party company violating policy, but the incident underscores Facebook’s notoriously unclear privacy settings, writes Bob Sullivan for MSNBC: “A hard-to-spot toggle switch grants the firm, by default, permission to use consumers’ information in advertisements to their friends.”

Though a Facebook rep insists this particular setting wouldn’t have saved Smith’s wife from the “rogue” developer who stole her picture, the snafu is yet another entry in the site’s “long and tortured history of attempting highly targeted advertising by mining data and usage habits from users,” and highlights “why consumers need to focus extra attention on privacy settings for all free sites they use.”

A Facebook page.
A Facebook page.   (Facebook)
The Facebook logo.
The Facebook logo.   (AP Photo)
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Consumers need to focus extra attention on privacy settings for all free sites. It's difficult, if not impossible, to control what information a company may grant to third parties, and whether or not those third parties will follow agreed-upon rules. - Bob Sullivan

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13 comments
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Nwambe
Jul 28, 09 1:54 PM CDT
Facebook has agreed to let a third party advertiser use your posted pictures without your permission. Click on SETTINGS up where you see the log out link. Select PRIVACY SETTINGS. Select NEWS FEEDS AND WALL. Select the tab that reads FACE BOOK ADS. There is a drop down box, select NO ONE. Save your changes. Please pass this around Reply
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+5
IN RESPONSE:
Mad
Jul 28, 09 5:18 PM CDT
Easier solution: Don't ever log on to facebook.com - As an aside, why was the married Peter Smith looking at ads for “hot singles” to began with??? Just sayin'
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-3
IN RESPONSE:
A.Carpenter
Jul 28, 09 10:00 PM CDT
Mad, the ads are shown automatically beside profiles and other parts of the site. He likely wasn't looking at all and it just appeared in a banner ad along the side, much like there are on every newser page.
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0
IN RESPONSE:
Vox
Jul 28, 09 10:55 PM CDT
@Nwambe: In fact, the "Facebook Ads" tab doesn't do anything now, except display this dialog: "Worried about privacy? Your photos are safe. There have been misleading rumors recently about Facebook using your photos in ads.... These rumors were related to third-party applications, and not ads shown by Facebook." Whether or not that's true, why remove whatever privacy control was there before?
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+1
Reader60610265
Jul 28, 09 2:05 PM CDT
good to know, thanks and i will. Reply
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