Smile for the Camera!

Whether or not you want to believe it, marketing firms are mining your selfies. Users on photo-sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram are well-aware that if they choose to share their pictures publicly, anyone can view their personal photos. Instagram says that 20 billion photos have already been shared on its platform, and its users are adding approximately 60 million a day. It may be more surprising to hear that digital marketing companies are searching, scanning, storing and even repurposing these personal images to "draw insights for big-brand advertisers."

One company, Ditto Labs Inc., uses special software to scan photos to identify logos. The software can also scan to see whether or not the person in the image is smiling, and can scan for the larger context of the scene. Additionally, these kinds of companies can store images for long periods of time on their own individual servers to show marketers what is trending and what is "popular." This software compiles data that allows marketers to send highly targeted ads and/or conduct specific market research. 

This, of course, raises privacy concerns, and privacy watchdogs are saying that these platforms are not communicating in a direct enough way to their users that their images can be scanned or downloaded for marketing purposes--with the hopes that brands will eventually spend money to advertise on these photo-sharing sites. 

So the next time you post on Instagram or Pinterest, make sure to smile for the camera, because you never know where the photo will end up. 

SOURCE: http://online.wsj.com/articles/smile-marketing-firms-are-mining-your-selfies-1412882222