Facebook cannot seem to get its privacy issues under control. As soon as one is resolved, something else pops up to make users reconsider what they put on their profiles. The latest issue comes from Facebook Ads. Instead of showing a consistent photo next to the ads that appear in the margins and sidebars of the Facebook window, Facebook instead shows the profile photo from someone on your friends list, so it appears as if that person is endorsing the product or service, or has sent you the link to the ad themselves. This article details one user who signed on to his Facebook account only to see a picture of his wife next to a “Hot Singles are Waiting for You!” ad. Needless to say, neither he nor his wife were pleased.
Most people do not want their face to appear next to a product, service, or slogan unless they have given Facebook specific permission to use their likeness. While the case of the man and his wife was an incident related to a third-party company that has since been removed from Facebook, the issue relates back to each Facebook user’s privacy controls. Instead of asking users for permission to take certain actions, Facebook has a longstanding and annoying habit of acting first and apologizing later. In order to protect your privacy, check your privacy settings on a regularly basis to see if Facebook has decided to allow certain actions on your behalf without your knowledge.
The problem is that these privacy settings are hard to find and even harder to navigate. When this Red Tape article instructed us to disallow the Facebook Ad service by changing our privacy settings, we couldn’t figure out how to do so. We had to follow the article’s flow chart to update our privacy settings. The instructions are as follows:
We here at Five Point Capital recommend regularly checking your Facebook Privacy Settings to see what applications you may be unintentionally allowing to access your Facebook profile information. It seems like it will only be a matter of time before this Facebook scam becomes a major problem for Facebook executives. Privacy is something no one wants to compromise on, and if people do not feel safe using Facebook, the executives can kiss their empire goodbye.
