Social Media Privacy Changes

On November 11th, Google will implement a new change in their privacy contracts with users. This contract will allow Google to use your profile picture in ads across a wide range of Google supported ads. Google calls this "Shared Endorsement" which means products that you have put a +1 on or reviewed will be displayed on businesses ads. What will also be displayed along side your review and profile picture is your name as well. These ads with your profile pictures and name will be viewed by others. This is causing issues with Google+ users because its invading privacy and if users aren't getting paid to be put on ads, then why would you want to be put on ads in the first place?

Google has made it clear that it is optional to be in the new advertisements that they have implemented. When logging in to your Google account after the policy change, you can either choose to opt in or opt out. I personally opted out because I don't have many friends on Google+ and I don't want my account to be seen by random ads that I didn't allow to use my picture and names. This is a great way to keep their customer based accounts because it gives us the option if we want in or we want out unlike the Facebook Privacy change they rolled out earlier in October 2013.

Facebook changed it's policy after the 2012 December announcements that it was going to overhaul the buggy search system. After this change you can no longer prevent others from looking your name up in the search bar user interface on Facebook. Others from Google cannot look you up still but your profile will be displayed if searched from within Facebook itself. It's going to be difficult for those who are looking for jobs because some jobs will search a person before they hire them. This leads to unfair employment opportunities and leads to no more professionalism within the work industry.

There still is the option to limit who can see your page information and posts. But if you are tagged in a picture or a status, you can still be seen. It's still early in its infancy that these issues should be worked out in the long run. It's worrying to some because this invades their privacy and their personal life that they want to keep separate from their work life. Google and Facebook are facing major backlashes from these changes in their policies and with the NSA scandal still looming over our heads, are they really in the favor of protecting our information or are they willing doing this because they are being paid to? Who knows whats going to happen next and from the look of this, I'd say it isn't going in the right direction of having our informatino private anymore.