If you use Google services, you could become an ad next month


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http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/11/google-users-shared-endorsements-ads/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000601

 

Google users, you're about to become shills. A major update to the company's Terms of Service agreement today could have some users' profiles showing up in ads across the web. These "shared endorsements," as Google is calling them, leverage any reviews, comments, +1s, follows or stars a user may have given to a business or brand by effectively placing that user's name, photo and any relevant comment in a personalized advertisement. It's worth nothing, however, that if you've set restrictions on your shared comments, personalized ads will only be shown to friends within that Google+ circle.

We know what you're thinking: you want out. Google knows this too, which is why the company is allowing users the ability to opt-out, while also excluding any and all users under the age of 18. And any users that previously opted out of +1s will automatically be exempted. The ads are set to go live on November 11th, so there's still about a month to go before users will begin to see these "shared endorsements" pop up, giving Google ample time to explain the change across its suite of services and users the ability to take appropriate action (and give up on the internet altogether).

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Someone told Google they need to focus on 1 thing, and do that 1 thing right - I think it was Jobs. Anyway, for whatever reason they decided to focus on "social", which is BS because I want "search", not "social".

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If no one left any reviews/comments/+1 or people just left negative stuff, they would soon abandon the idea.

I'm already doing that. As soon as Facebook started exploiting likes for advertising I went through my profile and removed everything I'd ever liked and any page I'd added to my profile. I removed thousands of items and strengthened my privacy settings. With Google Plus I made sure not to use my account for +1'ing pages and follow very few pages to avoid being bombarded with advertisements.

 

That said, I'm still opposed to this. My identity is my own and I do not want to be used to promote products without my explicit consent. I like Google as a company but regulators need to put a stop to actions like these. I can't believe such a policy would comply with the EU's upcoming data protection law, so hopefully this will be a non-starter here.

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I'm not saying I like it, but at least they are giving us an option to opt out.

 

People these days are too entitled to things, and everyone acts like it's a God given right to be able to use whatever you want for free, and pay nothing, AND have total privacy.

 

Google's internet highway is not free, it's a toll-road.  When it comes down to it, Google is a business that needs to make money to survive.  Whether their long term goals are good or evil is unclear, but they are providing great services at $0 cost (for the most part), and have constantly been pushing for the advancement of technology.

 

The fact is, everything costs something, whether it's time, money, or some other form of commodity, and in this case Google is charging us our privacy as currency.  If you don't like it, then don't "pay" for their services and go somewhere else.  No matter where you go though, just about every service will "cost" something.

 

However these days we are are so reliant on web services (myself included) that this is not a realistic option, so the best thing we can do is just use the privacy controls we have, ask for more privacy controls, and reduce our online fingerprint (hiding birthdates, gender, interests, etc) as much as possible, all in an effort to reduce the "cost" of the services.

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