It seems that quite a few people (myself included) have gotten caught up in the “Facebook Ad Myth”, the one that has user pictures being made available for third party use unless users change their privacy settings. If we’ve learned nothing else from Mythbusters, we know that every good myth has some element of truth to it. So, what is the truth and what is the myth? Thankfully the people over at Facebook (as well as Snopes) have posted some info on this:
If you see a Wall post or receive a message with the following language or something similar, it is this false rumor:
FACEBOOK has agreed to let third party advertisers use your posted pictures WITHOUT your permission.
The advertisements that started these rumors were not from Facebook but placed within applications by third parties. Those ads violated our policies by misusing profile photos, and we already required the removal of those deceptive ads from third-party applications before this rumor began spreading.
So originally it started out with a kernel of truth… But what about the privacy settings? As far as I know the defaults were to share with everyone, so if nothing else it has got people actually looking and thinking about privacy settings within Facebook (AllFacebook), hopefully eliminating some level of ignorance in the process. It also shows that the people at Facebook are watching their service as well… something that one would think would be pretty hard with the number of users it has now.
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