“Social advertising”. It sounds so innocuous. But it isn’t. It means that simply by “liking” something on LinkedIn, or if you “take other actions”, they can use your name and photo in third-party advertising. Pricks.
I’ve written about this in Crikey today, LinkedIn pulls a Facebook-like swifty on ‘social advertising’. I called them “exploitative”. I compared them to the “consumer-grade arseholes at Facebook”. I stand by all of that, and more.
I asked how LinkedIn could be so stupid. But it’s more than that.
Just what sort of mindset do LinkedIn’s executives have if they reckon this is an acceptable way to do business with people?
To me it indicates that they have no idea how people might react to discovering their face in someone else’s advertising. Or, if they do realise that, a disturbingly callous disregard for others, putting their business profits before their basic responsibilities as human beings.
Is that antisocial personality disorder? That seems to be what we call being a psychopath these days.
If you’re a LinkedIn user and want to opt out of all this, go to where your name is displayed on the top right of your LinkedIn screen and click on “Settings”. Click on “Account” at the bottom left of screen, then “Manage Social Advertising”.
[Disclosure: I receive a free LinkedIn Pro account as part of their media outreach program.]
Tags: advertising, crikey, facebook, linkedin, psychopath, social networks
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Do you need to bother with the disclosure if you are tearing them a new one?
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@Martin Barry: Well, perhaps not. But I’ve made it part of my routine to disclose such links, no matter what I’m writing. I guess it conveys the message that I’ll still write what I like, regardless of freebies.
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