Google has decided to use member’s profiles for advertising
within their platform and search results—without the member’s permission.
Google announced on Friday that they will start using user’s name, profile
photos, ratings, and reviews in ads as part of something called “shared endorsements”.
For instance, if someone were to post a positive Italian restaurant review on a
Google local search, when his or her friend searches for Italian restaurants,
the review will show up as part of the search. The same thing occurs when
someone listens to music on Google play—that action will be shown to other
users in the form of sponsored advertising for that artist, band, or label.
I understand why Google is trying to harness user
information to tap into the “word-of-mouth” advertising realm. Both Google
& businesses realize that the best advertising is to have friends recommend
the service or product and reinforcing through social proof. This is clearly a
lucrative deal for advertisers as well. If advertisers have a higher click
through rate using user’s profiles to promote their client’s product, we can see
this becoming the norm on all the social media sites.
However, this raises three important questions. Number one, will
using profile behavior and content in this manner decrease the likeliness of
users like me to share information? If so, the potential backlash may not be
worth the attempt to use this type of advertising as users will likely decrease
the content they start to share. Secondly, how accurate can the information be?
Just because I listen to a single song or review a restaurant, will Google and
the advertising algorithm confirm my sponsorship accurately? Especially if my
content doesn’t match up or change over time. Finally, when will users start to
request fees and royalties from using their information & content for commercial
use? If businesses make money off of my content, shouldn’t I receive a cut?
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