LinkedIn Hurries To Address Privacy Stumble 58
swandives writes "LinkedIn will make changes to a 'social advertising' feature that has been criticized for using members' names and photographs in advertisements on its website. Amid mounting criticism, the social networking service says it has been 'listening' to its users and 'could have communicated' its intentions with the new ad feature more clearly. As a result, it said, it will change how the advertisements appear. If a LinkedIn user 'follows' a company or service on LinkedIn, the ad feature can display the user's name and photo in advertisements for that company. LinkedIn said its goal was to deliver more useful ads, but some LinkedIn users complained it was a privacy violation, particularly because they have to opt out of the feature rather than opt in. It will be interesting to see whether the changes affect stocks, especially since the network's IPO in May, when shares closed at more than double the initial price, prompting concerns over another dot-com bubble."
Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
Can we all just finally come out and state--once and forever--that the use of a person's photo and name in an *advertisement* (whether as an explicit endorsement or not, regardless of privacy policy or where the photo was uploaded, whether it was on a social network or search query) without the expressed consent of the person is a crime? At the least it strains copyright, it is a theft of service, and at most it constitutes conspiracy to commit fraud. Yes, fraud; because if a company is using my likeness without my knowledge in an attempt to create the impression amongst the people in my social circle that I endorse the advertised product or service, then that company is committing fraud upon my friends.
I don't care what the "Privacy Policy" states, criminal behavior is criminal behavior and cannot be policy'd around. Maybe these advertisers should start coming above board and offer to pay the idiots of their world for their photo and name on an opt-in, campaign-by-campaign basisthere'd be plenty of moron takers and we could use the jobs/extra income.