Slashdot Mirror
The New Facebook Ads - Another Privacy Debacle?
privacyprof writes "Facebook recently announced a new advertising scheme called 'Social Ads.' Instead of using celebrities to hawk products, it will use pictures of Facebook users. Facebook might be entering into another privacy debacle. The site assumes that if people rate products highly or write good things about a product then they consent to being used in an advertisement for it. Facebook doesn't understand that privacy amounts to much more than keeping secrets — it involves controlling accessibility to personal data. 'The use of a person's name or image in an advertisement without that person's consent might constitute a violation of the appropriation of name or likeness tort. According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts 652C: "One who appropriates to his own use or benefit the name or likeness of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy."'"
Those bastards.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Sounds a lot like the case when Virgin Mobile used a photo of a person from Flickr that was uploaded under "an Attribution Licence, which the Creative Commons website explains, will let others copy, distribute and display your photo and derivative works based upon it, provided they give credit the way you request."
http://www.out-law.com/page-8494
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
Post is 100% right. The definition of privacy is control of personal information. Secrecy is one means of control, but not the only one. Things like the "do not call" list are implementations of privacy by other means; i.e. they have your personal information, but you can still prevent them from using it by calling. Credit card and bank account info are also private: you give your CC# to a vendor and the vendor is only allowed to use it for the purpose of that transaction. Facebook apparently fails to appreciate the distiction between privacy and secrecy. They need to understand the magnitude of their error.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
I find the Facebook privacy stories frustrating because they seem to always ignore one thing - in almost every case the Facebook user decides how much information to make public, to whom, and which applications to install.
Facebook actually does a pretty good job of giving users control over their information and arguably is transparent about the ways that it may be used. That's more than a lot of e-commerce sites can claim, and in an age of spam-bots and the like probably commendable.
And ultimately it is optional, you have to choose to sign up.
Three Squirrels
"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
So, you gave them permission, good luck fighting it.
Suckers.
My Babylon
You rate a product there, you are providing Facebook with your opinion of the product. You agree to let Facebook use this opinion any way they want. You've also agreed to let Facebook use the pictures you've uploaded.
This conforms just fine with the user agreements. If you don't like it, don't use Facebook.
Yes, you sometimes see people with crazy pictures, but there are very few of those, from what I've seen.
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Facebook are quite happy to collect information on anyone who has ever been a user, including identifying them in photographs, even if they closed their account immediately after discovering that the site is one big invasion of privacy. Facebook offer no mechanism for ex-users to permanently delete such information, nor to prevent others continuing to provide it after a user cancels their account (despite the fact that this is almost certainly illegal in many jurisdictions).
So what next? Anyone whose friends group has ever mentioned a product on someone's wall is consenting to to any image of them tagged in a photograph by someone else without their knowledge being used in advertising? Anyone who once mentioned something privately to their friends in order to criticise it gets their face used to promote that thing to the world?
There is just no excuse for this. It's exactly why I am the guy who quit Facebook almost as soon as I'd joined it. Facebook, like Google, is one of the biggest dangers to modern society. Society just hasn't realised it yet, and lets them get away with stuff because they present the appearance of a useful service. Pandora's box ought to be required reading in schools.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
To give a more extreme example, if Facebook decided to use people's profile pictures, and Photoshop their heads on the bodies of naked people... would that be okay? Probably not. No amount of EULA mumb-jumbo or implied consent would make that legally permissible, both because of the particular laws that apply to things like modeling (especially adult modeling) and because any court would agree that this exceeded a "reasonable expectation" of the rights the user was granting to Facebook.
Now, in the case of this ad situation, I'll admit it's a bit less clear, but similar logic applies. There are special laws when it comes to endorsement, advertising, and commercial use of a person's likeness. Moreover, I think most courts would agree that this exceeds the "reasonable expectation" of what rights the user was granting when they signed onto Facebook.
I don't think this is an idea Facebook should pursue (unless it is explicitly opt-in), because doing it without permission opens the door to a class-action lawsuit. No amount of legalese in a click-through agreement can over-ride the common sense of a judge who can plainly see that people didn't intend for this to happen when they signed up for the service.
I would go so far as to say that such referrals and recommendations, coupled with the capacity to gauge the character of those recommending, is all the advertising the world needs.
If the scheme were fully transparent and held by a not-for-profit group, instead of privately held and administered behind closed doors, this would be great.
Privacy is overrated. We should ditch it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Actually, in the Virgin Mobile case, the issue at hand is that they didn't have a model release for the person in the picture. The picture was properly attributed.
It's well-established in the law (they even cited the code in the Slashdot summary) that you need someone's explicit permission to use their likeness for commercial purposes. Just having the photographer's permission isn't enough. How this relates to Facebook probably depends on the terms of service that the users agreed to when they signed up for the service. It's much less clearcut than the Virgin Mobile case.
Thanks kneejerkers for more of the same old "READ THE TOS DOOFUS".
If you actually read the TOS, you'd see this:
"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
Now, there's stuff in there about Facebook copying your content for storage. There's stuff in there about letting Facebook perform, display, or translate your content. There's even stuff in there about letting Facebook use your content to promote *Facebook*.
But can anyone in there see any sort of language that says Facebook can use your content to promote other products?
Read it carefully. I don't think there is such language, and I think there might actually be a case for misappropriation here.
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
"It's exactly why I am the guy who quit Facebook almost as soon as I'd joined it."
You didn't do your research, and want to complain about it after the fact while taking no personal responsibility.
"Privacy" does not mean "free from the consequences of bad decisions". You are (I assume) an adult. Try acting like one and protecting your privacy instead of assuming someone else will.
Give me a break. If you deactivate your account, all your information is deleted. You're complaining that if someone tags you in a photo, that tag still exists? Well, first, I'm not so sure that's true. It would be pretty sloppy engineering since the user account doesn't exist and so the link would go nowhere. And second, anyone can post anything about you anywhere, that doesn't make it someone else's responsibility.
Don't like what your friends are posting about you? Take it up with them!
How do you propose to do that? I'm with the OP: a transparent society is inevitable. Privacy as a natural phenomenon can't really exist; it's a purely social phenomenon. The further we progress, the harder it is to enforce. We can continue to ask for the illusion of privacy, and give more power to those who are too dishonest to respect privacy. Personally I'm of the camp that we should embrace the transparent society. At least that way there's some equity.
Asking your friends to remove your picture should be a simple process. Monitoring facebook might seem like an unreasonable expectation to uphold your privacy but monitoring your friends shouldn't be.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Who is driving?
Oh my god bear is driving! How can that be?
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
No, Facebook is NOT public - the default is limited access - which you may ramp up fruther. Unless you are on my friends list all you can see is my name and the picture I choose for my face. If you ARE my friend, you can see all my pictures, my e-mail and phone, my likes, my hates, and the fact that I induldge my brother by commuting zombiecide with him occasionally, and a fairly spotty account of what I've been up to for the last two years.
I am not willing to make that information public - but I want my friends to have it - and Facebook does this.
-GiH
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
No account registration necessary.
Personally I'm of the camp that we should embrace the transparent society. At least that way there's some equity.
Ok, let's go for it.
You first.
So you basically blackmailed your friend until he caved in and used a website that he didn't want to use? Nice. What he should have done is told every one of you to fuck off, pissed on your beds, and found new "friends".
Well, okay, from the way it skims, they're offering advertisers space to advertise to your friends that you like something you've already decided you don't mind your friends knowing you like. So if I put "West Wing when Aaron Sorkin still running it," maybe West Wing gets an add on the side of my page or a friends' newsfeed. Unless my 2 second skimming is wrong... okay, maybe it was one and a half seconds... it's a far cry from this to the girl who had her flickr photo stolen for a major advertising blitz across multiple mediums.
Indeed. It may seem a bit paradoxical, but in order for a transparent society to have any merit, the watchers must be the first to be watched.
I had a friend, too. In order to cause some general amusement, his best friend eventually just created an account for him... filled with hilarious "details" and pictures about his life. This persisted for a month until he eventually found out about it and that many of his other friends were in on the joke.
It caused the break up of a long-standing friendship, which has never recovered, and put strain on several other relationships affect by the "funny" content and the betrayal of trust.
See, the problem is Facebook, when its basic intent is to get friends to provide information about each other, regardless of whether anyone wants that information made public. People play along, probably quite innocently in most cases, and then before you know it someone goes too far and the damage is done. This is a fundamental problem with many social networking type sites, but Facebook is much worse than most of the others in several key ways.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.