Google Inc plans to launch new product-endorsement ads incorporating
photos, comments and names of its users, in a move to match the "social"
ads pioneered by rival Facebook Inc that is raising some privacy
concerns.
The changes, which Google announced in a revised terms of
service policy on Friday, set the stage for Google to introduce "shared
endorsements" ads on its sites as well as millions of other websites
that are part of Google's display advertising network.
The new
types of ads would use personal information of the members of Google+,
the social network launched by the company in 2011.
If a Google+
user has publicly endorsed a particular brand or product by clicking on
the +1 button, that person's image might appear in an ad. Reviews and
ratings of restaurants or music that Google+ users share on other Google
services, such as in the Google Play online store, would also become
fair game for advertisers.
The ads are similar to the social ads on Facebook, the world's No. 1 social network, which has 1.15 billion users.
Those
ads are attractive to marketers, but they unfairly commercialize
Internet users' images, said Marc Rotenberg, the director of online
privacy group EPIC.
"It's a huge privacy problem," said Rotenberg.
He said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission should review the policy
change to determine whether it violates a 2011 consent order Google
entered into which prohibits the company from retroactively changing
users' privacy settings.
Users under 18 will be exempt from the
ads and Google+ users will have the ability to opt out. But Rotenberg
said users "shouldn't have to go back and restore their privacy defaults
every time Google makes a change."
Information Google+ users have
previously shared with a limited "circle" of friends will remain
viewable only to that group, as will any shared endorsement ads that
incorporate the information, Google said in a posting on its website
explaining the new terms of service.
Google, which makes the vast
majority of its revenue from advertising, operates the world's most
popular Web search engine as well as other online services such as maps,
email and video website YouTube.
The revised terms of service are
the latest policy change by Google to raise privacy concerns. Last
month, French regulators said they would begin a process to sanction
Google for a 2012 change to its policy that allowed the company to
combine data collected on individual users across its services,
including YouTube, Gmail and social network Google+. Google has said its
privacy policy respects European law and is intended to create better
services for its users.
Google's latest terms of service change will go live on November 11.
© Thomson Reuters 2013
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