Many Facebook users are annoyed to discover that their names and faces can be used in sponsored FB ads. Indeed, according to Dan Tynan in IT World, the next phase will to allow 3rd-party advertisers to do the same thing inside Facebook apps.
I'm not a great fan of the FB principle of all your datum are belong to us, but I suppose it isn't unreasonable to make use of your Likes as long as you agree to it. Or in this case, don't opt out. Social media is/are, after all, about sharing information. (He said distastefully.) If you do want to decline this opportunity to be the Face of Farmville, before it turns into a security breach, it turns out to be fairly painless. (Yes, I did just try it.)
Go to Account (top right corner).
Go to Account Settings.
Click on the Facebook Adverts tab.
Close the "Understanding Social Ads" message box.
By default, "Allow adverts on platform pages to show my information to..." is set to "Only my friends". If you don't want to play, set to "No one" (the only alternative) and click Save Changes.
Since I don't Like anything on principle except occasionally a Facebook Friend's comment or picture (just call me Grumpy Old Man), it may be a while before I can be sure this works as it should. If you find out otherwise, by all means let us know in a comment here.
Actually, I'm going to really enjoy posting this to Facebook. ;-)
You can tell how excited I am when I deliberately split an infinitive.
David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow
