Image via WikipediaThe woman pictured in the ad was his wife.
The Lynchburg, Va., man had no doubts that his marriage was a happy one, so he figured some other kind of mischief must be at play. There was: privacy mischief.
A brief investigation uncovered this uncomfortable truth: Cheryl Smith's picture had been swooped up by a company advertising with the social media giant and used to generate an advertisement. She had no idea her image could be used that way, and until her husband spotted the ad, she was unaware that she'd become a model for an online dating company.
"Fortunately, he has a sense of humor. Otherwise it could have played out very differently," Smith, 44, said.
Facebook has a long and tortured history of attempting highly targeted advertising by mining data and usage habits from users. In 2007, the site began tracking user purchases and sharing the information with other Facebook users. After a protest, the practice was quickly abandoned. More recently, a flap over changes to Facebook's terms of service led to an online eruption, and another reversal. In this case, first spotted by Smith on July 13, Facebook blames the incident on the third-party company, which it says was violating its policies.
"The ads that spooked people were from rogue networks that have been dealt with," said spokesman Barry Schnitt. "The ads were removed, some ad networks were banned from Facebook, and developers were warned."
Schnitt wouldn't reveal what company created the Smith ad, but said it had received a warning. {Read on}
