Google Sets Plan to Sell Users’ Endorsements

Claire Cain Miller and Vindu Goel, reporting for the NYT:

On Friday, Google announced an update to its terms of service that allows the company to include adult users’ names, photos and comments in ads shown across the Web, based on ratings, reviews and posts they have made on Google Plus and other Google services like YouTube.

When the new ad policy goes live Nov. 11, Google will be able to show what the company calls shared endorsements on Google sites and across the Web, on the more than two million sites in Google’s display advertising network, which are viewed by an estimated one billion people.

Looking forward to hearing from Google fans how this is acceptable.

★ Friday, 11 October 2013