Privacy groups are at it again. This time they are going after social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, filing complaints about the network's new social-targeting advertising platform. Essentially, Facebook's Social Ads allows consumers to endorse a brand and then have their names and photos displayed along with an accompanying advertisement on their friend's profile page. A friend is classified as someone who belongs to his or her network. Consent is done through the terms and conditions consumers agree to when registering for the site under the TRUSTe privacy regulations, which include the passage below and can also be found here.
When you use Facebook, certain information you post or share with third parties (e.g., a friend or someone in your network), such as personal information, comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other information, may be shared with other users in accordance with the privacy settings you select. All such sharing of information is done at your own risk. Please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your profile or when posting comments, messages, photos, videos, Marketplace listings or other items, this information may become publicly available.
In recent blogs and editorial pieces, arguments have been made that this new platform may violate a 100-year-old New York privacy law that's suppose to protect people from having their names and likeness used for advertisements without permission. It's likely that this will not develop into more than debate and complaints, but it does raise the interesting question of, who is ultimately responsible for one's privacy?
As a media director, I'm careful to not recommend programs that clearly violate a consumer's privacy. For example, I don't work with partners that have a misleading privacy policy or no privacy policy or utilize a consumer's personally identifiable information without consent. If I'm working on a program where we're collecting names, I'll recommend a double opt-in, which means a consumer has to indicate twice that they want this information. And finally, I treat consumers like adults. If a consumer has chosen a specific action -- like to register for Facebook and create a profile page -- then I assume they did so voluntarily.
As a consumer, I take responsibility for what can be accessed on me. I have voluntarily chosen to have a profile page on most of the top social network sites, I belong to affinity groups and I post under my real name and I keep a blog to communicate with friends and family. In other words, if someone really cared, they could learn quite a bit about me. They would know my recommendations on products, my marital status, my employer, my friends, etc. In return, I get to participate in a community, voice my opinion and stay connected. I will voluntarily post my experiences on companies because a) I want to warn or encourage people; b) I want the company to understand my experience with them or their products.
There are socially active individuals online who feel that even if they are open with their information, that doesn't give marketers the right to use it. Well, it does if one agrees to it. Even though we live in a multitasking, get-it-done quick world, that doesn't give us permission to be lazy when it comes to our agreements. It's not a publisher or marketer's responsibility to read the terms and conditions to a registrant, it's only their responsibility to provide it. It's the individual's responsibility to understand what they are committing to before they check off the consent button.
If one does not accept or understand the terms of the agreement, then they shouldn't proceed. That is one way of rejecting a company's procedures and getting them to revise them. However, active online consumers continue to grow and, in Facebook's case, membership remains strong despite their new platform.
In the era of reality television, digital connectivity and mobility, we need to revaluate what privacy means to each of us. We can't condemn companies for being unjust, without also reevaluating our own actions. And, after all, if we still don't like what's happening, then we can always blog about it.