My Biology Professor Does Keg Stands?

March 24th, 2008

2 comments

Posted in: eMiniMalls

Facebook has announced modifications to their advertising initiatives, along with new privacy tools, which serve to protect the exploitation of user’s profile information.

Facebook users now have the option of tailoring exactly who in their network has access to sensitive profile information, including phone numbers and photos.

The social network has also, finally, responded to complaints stemming from the controversial SocialAds program. With SocialAds, marketers create Facebook pages/profiles which users can ‘befriend’; when a user becomes friends with a marketer’s page, the action is broadcast to the user’s network via RSS news feeds.

Facebook also gives marketers the ability to purchase profile information, which is used to target ads based on respective users’ interests or location.

Facebook initially promoted the integration of SocialAds with the justification that, “SocialAds make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you are your friends.” I agree that I would rather see a Nieman Markus ad over an ad for the latest John Deere lawn mower, but the thought of all my friends seeing what products I’m a fan of is just plain creepy.

Facebook has also recently responded to complaints over the ad program Beacon. Beacon tracks, and then broadcasts, Facebook users’ third-party online purchases, at sites such as ebay.com, or Blockbuster.com.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has publicly backed down on the Beacon advertising program, admitting, “we’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them…We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.”

Facebook now requires Facebookers to ‘opt-in’ before Beacon can share a user’s purchase activity, and the respective advertisements, with friends.

The fact that Facebook monetizes user’s profile information has been a hot topic in the press, and Facebook has been aiming to find a happy medium between monetizing of ad space (and information for targeting ads) and enhancing users’ privacy.

Part of Facebook’s move to grant “higher priority to user privacy over monetization,” is a new privacy tool that allows users to decide who can view their photos. Additionally, if a user only wants a sub-group within their network (ie; everyone that’s not my biology Professor) to access a particular photo album (ie; spring break in Aruba), they can appoint access solely to that group.

So, Facebook seems to be heading in the right direction in terms of cleaning up the “exploitation of user information” mess that has escalated since the 2006 launch of the RSS news feeds debacle, which inform members of changes to their friends’ profiles (ie; Jimmy and Caitlin’s relationship is ‘complicated’…again?).

Now, let’s see if MySpace can reduce the mêlée of flashy, bright, and obnoxious banners ads that give me a head-ache every time I log-in. Hmm, great place for a Motrin ad.

By Tessa Rudd, Strategic Partnerships Coordinator - Advertising Media Division

2 Responses to “ My Biology Professor Does Keg Stands? ”

1. 
   Ryan Says:
   March 25th, 2008 at 8:26 am

   Great article Tessa. Nice to hear that Big Brother is backing off a little :)

2. 
   Karla Escolas Says:
   March 25th, 2008 at 10:28 am

   Facebook has hid their SocialAds settings VERY well. I cannot for the life of me find where to “opt-in” or out. Interesting.

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