Dear facebook
Facebook occasionally pairs advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. These respect all privacy rules. You may opt out of appearing in your friends’ Facebook Ads below.
This is not marketing, this is fraud. Forcing the user to hunt their way into shutting off an implied endorsement of a third party action is fraudulent. In marketing, we pay good money for our celebrity endorsements, and I would like Facebook to openly follow the paid endorsement model if you want to pursue the every-person endorsement path. That I have to remove myself from this automatic advert generation system is a serious problem.
Blanket statements and auto-keyword generated advertising means that I could easily find myself endorsing a range of products I’m ideologically opposed to supporting simply because I have “marketing” as a keyword, and exploitative fraudulent work-from-home scams use marketing as a targeted interest. Let alone the problems that auto-keyword advertising has demonstrated in blogs that talk about feminism, child-free living, marriage equality, gay rights, and a host of other social causes.
Also, as someone who has advertised on Facebook recenty, I’m also concerned that I can’t switch off this option for my advertising – in fact, this seems to be Facebook forcing a feature on both advertiser and user. I find the idea of the advert being generated in this manner quite creepy, most unethical, and I would like to opt out of the process entirely. I’ve contacted Facebook’s advertising arm to find out if there is an opt-out solution for me. What’s the betting that as an advertiser, I’m granted less opt out options than the user?
Grow up, show some respect, and start behaving like a site that has people as members, not data points to be manipulated. Ask permission Stop hiding behind opt-out “Oops, we screwed up again forgiveness afterwards as your fundamental business model. It’s not ethical, it’s not sensible, and you’re burning goodwill with the people you need for survival.
PS: Facebook, if you need to do this for revenue – try charging a subscription fee instead. You could even put bartering options where we sell back the option to give endorsements to adverts for a reduced annual fee. After all, if we’re going to be providing endorsements, you should respect the industry standard of paying the actors for their placement in the advertising.
To Opt Out
Direct URL: https://register.facebook.com/privacy/?view=feeds&tab=ads
Step by Step Opt Out
Start with the settings – > Privacy menu – http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?ref=mb
Once in the Privacy settings, select “News Feed and Wall”
Step 1: Two Mouseclicks
Step 3: Select “Facebook ads” from the tabs.
Step 3 in the privacy setting dance.
Step 4 finally brings you to the point where you get the explanation how you’ll be endorsing other content without your prior permission. Finally, select “Appearance in ads: No one”
Step 4: The Opt Out (finally)
