I guess, yes: if you aren't going to use Facebook for three years, maybe you should disable your account before you leave.
However, this is still somewhat sensationalistic: the concept of these social ads was very clearly laid out as one of the launch features of Pages back in 2007.
"""Ads will be getting more relevant and more interesting to you. Instead of random messages from advertisers, we've launched Social Ads. Social Ads provide advertisements alongside related actions your friends have taken on the site. These actions may be things like "Leah is now a fan of The Offspring" (if I added The Offspring to my music) or "Justin wrote a review for Sushi Hut" (If Justin wrote this review on the Sushi Hut page). These actions could then be paired with an ad that either The Offspring or Sushi Hut provides."""
As for this specific feature to turn off these kinds of advertisements, that has existed since just about three years ago: January of 2010 is when they launched the new expanded Facebook privacy settings feature, and this is one of the settings people were talking about.
The scope of when and where they appear has changed somewhat over time, especially in early 2011 with the new "sponsored stories" feature, but the idea of how this feature will work and what it means has been there for much longer than that.
Then, in 2012, they added these stories to the news feed (where they were in this article). Again: the places where these ads are shown has changed somewhat over time, but this is the exact same feature and privacy implication as all the earlier variants.
I'm thereby somewhat at a loss as to what the real issue is here, or why this is suddenly "news" to anyone: nothing has really changed in how Facebook treats these ads in many years; I'd even go so far as to say in this specific case, they haven't done it ever, but they certainly haven't done it in the last 5 years (since 2007).
Regardless, you certainly have had many years now to understand and deactivate this feature: if someone, such as the author of this original post (not you, as maybe you haven't used Facebook since 2009), really care about your privacy, and somehow at the end of 2012 you haven't noticed a giant feature linked both from "Settings" and from "Privacy" on a website that is holding tons of personal information about you, I question whether you (again, OP) really care about your privacy ;P.
>I guess, yes: if you aren't going to use Facebook for three years, maybe you should disable your account before you leave.
That is an absurd standard. When people stop using a service, they just stop using it. That doesn't mean you get to pimp them out just because they aren't around to turn your shit off.
After that statement, I spent a ton of words with examples and detailed articles showing that the guy was actually wrong about the very premise that this behavior changed: it didn't, and even that privacy feature was there just one month shy of three years ago. I felt that lead was required, however, as the guy was making statements that things might have changed while he left, and if he really cares about that, I'm sorry, but you really can't trust anyone not to change things while you are gone: if you are going to leave your house unattended for three years, I don't care if it is illegal to break into it, you are downright stupid to not figure some way to get it watched, and maybe you should just sell it or at least rent it out to others in the interim.
>> if you are going to leave your house unattended for three years... you are downright stupid to not figure some way to get it watched
That is completely different.
Number one, a common and legitimate reason to stop using Facebook is apathy. How many sites or services have you abandoned using over the years? Imagine if each one of them took your inactivity as permission to actively impersonate you.
Number two, this isn't like your abandoned house getting broken into by random people. This is like your landlord changing your rent agreement unilaterally to say that she can steal your furniture.
The real difference is that I assume my landlord is basically honest, whereas I long ago dropped that assumption about Facebook. If I heard that Facebook were taking over web cameras and selling indecent images of their users, I would not be surprised.
I see the basic policy of Facebook as "we are going to do anything we want with your account and/or data unless you vigilantly monitor and stop us." Which is why I deleted my account.
I assume they actually kept it and are still selling my data, because that's just the kind of company they are.
It is quite well and heavily documented in the settings panel of the Facebook, which is itself cross-linked from the privacy panel. Additionally, you will be seeing the behavior occur to your friends, but again: if you are not looking at the settings and privacy sections of the website but purport to care about your privacy there is something wrong with you.
if you are not looking at the settings and privacy sections of the website but purport to care about your privacy there is something wrong with you.
This is a dangerous, anti-consumer notion. Nobody should have to go out of their way to preserve their privacy. I would reword your assertion like this: "If your users have to dig through settings and privacy sections to have some semblance of a normal existence, there is something wrong with your site."
What next, people start selling your most personal information (travel habits, TV and movie viewing history, etc.) on the open market, then demand a $20/mo fee to be left alone?
>> if you are not looking at the settings and privacy sections of the website but purport to care about your privacy there is something wrong with you.
There are two separate issues here: 1) should Facebook have done this, and 2) should the user have stopped it sooner.
You say the answer to #2 is "yes." Ok, fine.
But the answer to #1 is definitely "No." I don't care if they've been doing it since the day they launched. They're spamming the user's friends, without the user's explicit action, in a way that makes it appear that the user did it personally.
How can they possibly call that a "feature"? Imagine having Skype auto-dial your contacts, impersonate your voice, and pitch them on products.
>> if you are still using Facebook but purport to care about your privacy there is something wrong with you.
However, this is still somewhat sensationalistic: the concept of these social ads was very clearly laid out as one of the launch features of Pages back in 2007.
https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=6972252130
"""Ads will be getting more relevant and more interesting to you. Instead of random messages from advertisers, we've launched Social Ads. Social Ads provide advertisements alongside related actions your friends have taken on the site. These actions may be things like "Leah is now a fan of The Offspring" (if I added The Offspring to my music) or "Justin wrote a review for Sushi Hut" (If Justin wrote this review on the Sushi Hut page). These actions could then be paired with an ad that either The Offspring or Sushi Hut provides."""
As for this specific feature to turn off these kinds of advertisements, that has existed since just about three years ago: January of 2010 is when they launched the new expanded Facebook privacy settings feature, and this is one of the settings people were talking about.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/01/19/how-to-protect-your...
The scope of when and where they appear has changed somewhat over time, especially in early 2011 with the new "sponsored stories" feature, but the idea of how this feature will work and what it means has been there for much longer than that.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/01/24/sponsored-stories-f...
Then, in 2012, they added these stories to the news feed (where they were in this article). Again: the places where these ads are shown has changed somewhat over time, but this is the exact same feature and privacy implication as all the earlier variants.
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/12/20/facebook-to-introdu...
I'm thereby somewhat at a loss as to what the real issue is here, or why this is suddenly "news" to anyone: nothing has really changed in how Facebook treats these ads in many years; I'd even go so far as to say in this specific case, they haven't done it ever, but they certainly haven't done it in the last 5 years (since 2007).
Regardless, you certainly have had many years now to understand and deactivate this feature: if someone, such as the author of this original post (not you, as maybe you haven't used Facebook since 2009), really care about your privacy, and somehow at the end of 2012 you haven't noticed a giant feature linked both from "Settings" and from "Privacy" on a website that is holding tons of personal information about you, I question whether you (again, OP) really care about your privacy ;P.