Facebook Ads - Stop them from accessing your photos and personal information from your profile page

Though facebook says that it will not sell your personal information to any third party advertisers, it is always better to be safe than sorry. Also, there is a small clue hiding in their words itself, which says "Even if we give your information, it is with your permission, like what you set up in your settings".

So, what am I talking about?

It is all about the Facebook Ads settings. Do you know that there is a setting in facebook, which allow advertisers to post ads depending upon your status messages or private messages or photo comments? This means, indirectly facebook lets the third party advertisers to have access to your personal information and profile page details, and to display ads depending on your taste.

For example, let us say you are living in London (which you had put in your location info) and if you have a message saying "Oh I prepared yummy chocolate cake" in your status, then you will see an ad on the side of your profile page like "The best place to buy yummy cakes in London is xyz". So, the advertisers pick all the details they wish from your profile, and put ads accordingly.

So, as I said in the first paragraph, though facebook says that it will not sell your personal information to any third party advertisers, it is always better to be safe than sorry. Also, there is a small clue hiding in their words itself, which says "Even if we give your information, it is with your permission, like what you set up in your settings". Funnily, the default setting is "You accepted" to give your details to the advertisers.

Won't it look bad, that the advertisers can access your photo, where you stand with your husband or wife and people wrote comments like "Gorgeous couple", and place some X-rated ads in your page, which will be visible to your friends too?

So, here is the easy steps to follow and stop this disaster access.

After logging into your facebook account, click on the Account --> Account Settings option (which can be seen on the top most of the right hand side). There you will see a serial of tabs as below

Settings Networks Notifications Mobile Language Payments Facebook Ads

1.Click on the last tab called "Facebook Ads".

2. Click on the link "Edit third party ad settings".

3. Select the option as "No one" instead of "Only Friends" and save the changes.

4. Click on "Facebook Ads" tab again.

5. Click on the link "Edit Social Ads Settings" and repeat the same as in step 3.

All done. Now no one has the access to your info for ad purpose.

I heard that this comes into effect from 29th April 2011, that is today. So act fast and change the settings. It hardly takes 2 minutes of your time. Save your personal informations and photos from the eagle eye of the advertisers.