Have you ever wished to see your face in an advertisement? Have you ever dreamed of being an advertising model for your favorite products? Well, wish no more because Facebook has finally made that dream come true – except, the way Facebook did it brings to mind the age-old adage, “be careful what you wish for”. Facebook recently enabled its new feature ‘Social Ads’. Basically, this puts your face and your name on the ads that appear in your friends’ pages. They’re hoping that people will be more likely to buy a product if they find out that their friends are using it as well. The problem, of course, is that Facebook is using you and your data with dubious permission since Social Ads is enabled by default, and you pretty much agreed to it when you said yes to their terms and agreements.

Millions of Free Endorsers

Facebook is probably the trickiest company on the planet. Mark Zuckerberg and his minions are geniuses for thinking up a scheme like this. Millions of people have become endorsers without their knowledge. They won’t get paid for it, but you can bet your bottom dollar that Facebook will. Social Ads will pair your name and profile photo with advertisements relevant to pages that you liked. For example, if you say that you like McDonald’s, then your name will appear alongside any McDonald’s advertisements which appear on your friends’ pages. Of course, except for the unfairness of being an unpaid – and possibly unwilling – endorser, this whole Social Ads thing might not be a very big deal, especially since it’s only your friends who will actually see it. Besides, you pretty much endorsed the product anyway the minute you clicked ‘like’. However, if you read Facebook’s privacy policy carefully, you’ll see that they have further plans for this feature of theirs. Right now, Facebook does not give third party apps or ad networks the right to use your data, but should this be allowed in the future, then Facebook will certainly have no qualms about letting the names and photos roll.

Again with that Default Setting

The most annoying thing about Facebook is that they enforce new updates without making big announcements. Friday came and went, and only a fraction of Facebook users actually found out about this new setting. By default, you’re allowing your name and face to be used. The only thing you can do to prevent this is to change your settings as soon as you can.

Here is the step-by-step process for opting out of a profitless endorsement deal:

1. Go to your Account Settings, which is accessible from the account tab in the top-right hand corner of your Facebook Homepage.
2. Once there, click on the Facebook Ads tab, which is located next to Payments.
3. Just close the pop-up window which will appear. It’s only Facebook’s attempt to get you to trust them and their Social Ads feature. Look for the “Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to:”, then from the drop down menu, change ‘only my friends’ to ‘no one’.
4. Save Changes.

Sneaky as Facebook is, the process doesn’t end there.

1. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.
2. Look for ‘Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to:”, then change ‘Only my Friends’ to ‘No one’.
3. Save Changes

Don’t waste any time in making sure that your data won’t be used and abused. Do these steps now and protect yourself from becoming one of Facebook’s milking cows.