[Truck Champion]

​

This past Friday Google announced that it would soon be able to show users’ names, photos, ratings, and comments in advertisements all across the Internet, endorsing marketers’ products. Likewise this past Thursday Facebook, too, took a step to show personal information more broadly by changing its search setting to make it harder for users to hide from other people trying to find them on the social network.


Facebook, which has 1.15 billion users already runs similar endorsement ads parsing anything you have ever ‘Liked’ or commented on and serving them as advertisements to your friends. Some users including myself in protest have responded by changing their Facebook usernames, images, and personal information to make it harder for these networks to use them for profit.

Users under 18 will be exempt from the ads and users on the Google+ social network will have the ability to opt out.

Both companies have characterized these changes as minor updates. They are, though, the latest example of the continual and often unwelcomed push by Internet companies to collate your personal information shared online in an unending grasp to profit from you.

Google and Facebook say that with these most recent changes, they are trying to offer users more comprehensive and personalized services. The problem, privacy advocates say, is Internet companies are using and displaying the personal information of users in ways the authors did not expect when they originally posted it.

Unfortunately my friends I believe that this is only the beginning. As Twitter prepares to go public and faces pressures to become profitable, it too will increasingly need to figure out how to make money from the information it collects. Now I can't help but wonder how long before your posts to any website will become fair game for marketers?

Google's latest terms of service change will go live on November 11.

 

[ToyotaT4WD]

What does this have to do with automakers?

 

[Truck Champion]

What does this have to do with automakers?

That's a good question; let me explain. Automakers like Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, etc spend millions with Google in advertising online every year. Marketers at Google will soon begin to personalize and target their advertising to the Internet based on what you've liked, commented on, reviewed, and posted on the Internet. They do this by possibly including your username, photo, comments, reviews, and likes embedded with their advertising. In effect they may use your Internet activity to help market their products to your friends and the Internet at large. How do you feel about that?

 

[ToyotaT4WD]

Just use startpage.com

 

[cheapskate]

So by rights, if they use my word as a testimonial so to speak, without my permission, I should be able to either collect money, as a fee, or sue them for not asking my permission first. I could be wrong but I see law suits coming out of stuff like this if these guys do start using actual persons identities or pictures.

 

[Tundra-Rebel]

So by rights, if they use my word as a testimonial so to speak, without my permission, I should be able to either collect money, as a fee, or sue them for not asking my permission first. I could be wrong but I see law suits coming out of stuff like this if these guys do start using actual persons identities or pictures.

As I was reading down this thread, I had the exact same thought, cheapskate. I love how the celebs all get huffy when their picture is on the tabloid but the general public doesn't realize that if any company uses someones likeness, statement or personal information for profit, the person must have signed a permission agreement or waiver of rights. Let these companies use my info without my permission and then I'll own a small portion of each after the lawsuit settles!

 

[Fenrisulfr]

Adblock
Scriptblock
Disconnect.me
Ghostery

Those kill the tracking and the advertisements.