What is the Facebook Social Ads campaign? It allows companies to use your name and profile picture in advertisements targeted to your friends. If you ‘like’ something then pages, events or apps can have your name and picture displayed in online ads for participating companies. If you ‘like’ Sony, for example, your face would show up in an ad or a promotion on someone else’s account for a Sony product. Ads with your name will be visible only to the friends who are allowed to see your status updates and Wall posts.
Facebook says that it “makes advertisements more interesting and more tailored” to its users. Facebook’s privacy policy says. “We only share the personally identifiable information visible in the social ad with the friend who can see the ad.” So they say but at this point do you really trust them?
PC World says Facebook will eventually allow third-party app developers to use your name and picture in ads placed within Facebook apps. You should be very concerned about companies using your name and photo to promote their products. You can opt-out of Social Ads by following a some steps found on WonderHowTo.com
- Click on the ‘Account’ tab in the top right-hand corner of your Facebook home page, and select ‘Account Settings’ from the drop-down menu.
- There, you’ll see another tab, titled ‘Facebook Ads,’ at the far right of the page. Clicking on the tab will open a new page, where you’ll have the chance to change your default settings for third-party ads.
- Changing the default from ‘Only my friends’ to ‘No one’ will guarantee that you won’t appear in future ads from third-party apps or sites
- At the bottom of the page, you’ll see the field Social Ads. The site gives you two options: either sharing your social action in ads that will be displayed exclusively to your friends, or sharing it with no one, at all.
- Pick none at all then click Save Changes.