Facebook asks me: “No girlfriend yet?”
Before anything else, I’d like to greet you all a Happy Valentine’s Day in advance. Since that day falls on a Tuesday, I’m sure many couples out there would celebrate it this coming weekend. What about for those uncommitted? Do they have to wallow in despair because of solitude? No. Facebook has a solution for that!
The other night, while Facebooking in Mozilla Firefox, I saw this cute advertisement in the upper right corner of my Timeline. It says: “No girlfriend yet? Get serious about a relationship and sign-up for free at FlirtMax.PH. Plenty of girls from Manila are already there.” I’d like to note that I didn’t see this ad when I used Google Chrome.
The first question that entered my mind is, “How did THEY know I’m single?” Oh yes. I recently set my relationship status to “single.” So probably, Facebook “shared” that information to their advertisers. As Financial Times reported yesterday, “Facebook is offering to marketers an opportunity to pay to feature these automatic posts more prominently to a user’s friends, in their news feeds, and in the right-hand column of the page that is generally reserved for advertising.”
Since it’s the season of love, I’ll give Facebook the benefit of the doubt. I won’t see the presence of that cute ad in my profile page as an attempt by the social network site to infringe on my privacy. Maybe, FB sincerely wants me to be in a relationship soon. Thanks, but no thanks. Obviously, not everyone needs somebody to love, at least for now (apologies to Justin Bieber). 🙂
Read: “Facebook Timeline ads plan raises fresh privacy fears”
from The Financial Times
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