Microsoft shows Chrome as a bouncing ball of privacy invasion

As Adrants' Steve Hall writes, "You've gotta love these corporate videos that 'leak' their way into the pubic." (I think he meant "public", but Steve writes for Playboy too, so he probably hasn't flagged that typo in his spellchecker.)

Anyway, Microsoft would like you to know that there is an evil behind the über-integration that Google has been steering towards, and that is the fact that their platforms and applications conspire to learn everything about you and use it to sell you stuff.



This is hardly a new tactic, though. Remember this?



From the Associated Press last month:

Microsoft developed its anti-Google ad campaign shortly after hiring former political operative Mark Penn in August as a corporate strategist who reports directly to Ballmer. Penn is best known as a former pollster for President Bill Clinton and a campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful bid for president in 2008. Penn left his job as CEO of public relations firm Burson-Marsteller to help Microsoft generate more usage of its Bing search engine and other online services.

That's a big challenge, right there. (I never touch Bing myself.) But the points about Google's omniscience are valid, even if coming from a company like Microsoft.

I guess it just comes down to what you're willing to put up with to get free stuff. I'm writing this on the free Google blog platform, will be sharing it on G+, and hope that some of you will find me... through Google.

But then again, I'm an adman. We all like to think we're immune to advertising, no matter how targeted.

Sex tourism, or travel matchmaking?

One thing about working in advertising is you always wonder what's behind some of those sleazy online ads you see as you bounce around the internet.

Here's one I saw on fark.com:

Of course it's a scam, but I wanted to know how obvious a scam it was. So I went where few non-desperate people have gone before:

Okay, that's not too scary. It even makes clear on Google that it is not an escort site.

So what is it? Well, you can't get too far into that with a major breach of privacy.

There's only so much I'm willing to give up online. This is my real name, and I have a wife, a son, and a job. But fortunately others have made the ultimate privacy sacrifice in the interest of science.

According to this blog:

"As soon as you log in women will start sending you chat and email messages that can only be replied to if you are a paying member.  I can not believe with no picture or personal information some girl would text me in seconds. I think it was set up this way so guys would sign up for their premium service."

Someone else wrote:

"I've registered 8 (!) male accounts on Travelgirls.com on the same day. Without photo or any demographics info, exept country. So I suppose such account should not be interesting to any girl. All 8 my fake users got 5 messages from THE SAME 3 girls in ~30 minutes after registration. All those girls of course were very beautiful and had profiles with photos, but...one small problem :) They all were sending almost the same message to all users. For example all users got a message from a girl called Perla. My fake user from France got a message "invite me to France", fake user from Spain got message "Invite me to Spain", etc. So Perla asked all 8 fake guys to invite her to their native country, mentioned in profile. Another one girl Eva also sent message to all users: "Have you been to Kiev/Ukraine?". Also two more girls with russian names sent messages immediately to all users. I don't know what about are those messages, because premium membership is necessary to read them."

So it's basically a porn chat scam. Meh. But more scary exploitation of lonely guys is afoot:

"I met a girl from Belarus on this site; her name there is Baby_MUR. Her actual name, according to what she told me is Evgeniya Serzhan. I met her and for 2 weeks she gave me the impression she was truly interested in me and wanted to travel to the USA. I offered to buy her plane ticket if she could get the visa. She told me it shouldn't be a problem, but a couple of days afterward said the cost would be 150 eur and that her parents wouldn't help her. She asked if I could help and told me maybe she could do something in return for me. I told her we would work together and figure something out. The next day she told me she would borrow the money and go to the Embassy to apply for the visa and that was the last I heard from her. She will now no longer answer any of my messages on the site, answer her phone when I call, nor will she write me back when I send her e-mails. It seems obvious to me that all she wanted was my money and when I didn't offer to send her the 150 eur she decided to drop me and look for someone she might be able to sucker. In short that makes her a romance scammer/gold digger. By the way, I looked at the site for the US Embassy in Minsk and the site shows the cost of the visa to be $140 USD--a far cry from 150 eur, which is about $200 USD. Furthermore, she told me they would process the visa for her there, but the site information shows they are no longer processing tourist visas in Minsk and persons wanting one would have to visit Embassys in other countries for processing. Beware of this site because if there is one like this there are bound to be others as well."

Sad, sad, sad. But what about the girls? Are they real? The site itself asks for a login before clickthrough, but Google seems to have no problem accessing lower level pages directly:

I have no idea if these women are real or not. I don't really want to find out. But I do hope that none of them are being trafficked, or forced into the sex trade through poverty or circumstance.

The guys, by the way, are a little more shy...

Well, some of them...)

Why should I care? I guess there are two things the internet has done to me. First of all, by bringing me news of sex work, tourism, tragedy and scams from around the world, it has made me more aware of the underbelly of human nature. And second, even if I wanted to be blissfully ignorant, these ads would continue to intrude on my world with a reminder of theirs.

By the way, the site owner (it's registered in Lithuania) denies any liability for any real people who may get involved in this particular type of travel.

"4.1. This Site is a venue. Services provided by the Company do not include the introduction of users to one another. This Site is merely a venue for members and/or viewers to learn about one another and, if they wish, arrange stays with one another. The Company is not involved in the actual contact between members and/or viewers . As a result, the Company has no control over the conduct of members and/or viewers or the truth or accuracy of the information that members and/or viewers post on the Site.
4.2. The Company cannot and do not confirm purported identity of the members and/or viewers . Although the Company provides tools intended to assist you, you are responsible for determining the identity and suitability of others with whom you may match by means of this Site. The Company does not endorse any persons who use or register for the services which are provided by the Company. The Company does not investigate reputation of the members and/or viewers , conduct, morality, criminal background, or verify the information such of the members and/or viewers may submit to the Site. You shall communicate directly with potential hosts and guests through the tools available on the Site and to take the same precautions you would normally take when meeting a stranger in person for the first time.
4.3. You shall be solely responsible for your interactions with other members and/or viewers of this Site. The Company will not be responsible for any damage or harm resulting from your interactions with other members and/or viewers of this Site. The Company reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor interactions between you and other members and/or viewers of this Site and to take any other action in good faith to restrict access to or the availability of any material that the Company or another members and/or viewers of this Site may consider obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.
4.4. Because this Site is merely a venue, in the event that you have a dispute with other members and/or viewers of this Site, you release the Company and officers, directors, members, employees, agents and affiliates of the Company from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.
4.5. In-person meetings which are held by groups of interested members and/or viewers are not sponsored or organized by the Company. Members who organize meetings should make clear in their announcements, invitations and signage that their meetings have not been organized or approved, and are not run, by the Company. The Company cannot guarantee the quality, organization or safety of any in-person meeting (whether or not sponsored by us). Members attend meetings at their own risk."

Good luck with that...

F'd Ad Fridays: Find His Porn

Who needs a trusting relationship of mutual respect when, for just $19.95, you can expose your partner's computer to some stranger's cyber-frisking?

From the site:

"Why do I need it? 

Long gone are the days when guys would hide their porn stash under their mattress or in their dresser drawers. Porn has gone virtual – which means no more adult DVD’s or dirty magazines that you will find lying around. Everything he looks at is right there on your computer, only problem is it’s not easy to find. Aren’t you curious what he’s up to? You are not alone. Most women are curious and until now there was little that could be done. Now all you have to do is try Find His Porn today and see exactly what he’s watching. "

Or you could just ask him to share it, if you're so into that kind of thing.

Via Buzzfeed

Don Draper can sell anything, even technology that would have destroyed him

This is a great ad for something many Facebook users aren't too keen on:



So nice to see Sal again. And the writing is great.

Yeah, it's a mashup. But when it brings us right back to Don/Dick's birth in 1928, the ad reminds us that Facebook does not in fact contain our whole lives. For those of us who are older, it is just a brief slice of history. And a selective one at that.

Plus, showing Don's real name, the circumstances of his birth, and his ex-wife all remind us of the privacy concerns brought up by this new feature. In the 1960s, Don's world could be destroyed by a box of photos. Today, the man would never even have had a chance.

Backstory here.

Facebook: Born of nerds, killed by nerds?

Mashable reports that some (although not all) members of the headline-hungry hacker group "Anonymous" have declared that they will destroy Facebook on November 5:



This video, which looks like something from Robocop, cites users' total ignorance of privacy issues as the cause.

I guess we'll just have to see what happens...

Can Vancouver redeem itself through crowdnarcing?

Last night's Stanley Cup Loser Riot in Vancouver was a black eye for the city and the team. But there are many in Vancouver who refuse to let their reputation be destroyed by a few assholes. So they decided to out the troublemakers on social media.

"Vancouver 2011 Riot Criminal List" is a collaborative Tumblr photoblog that asks riot witnesses to post photos of people they saw engaged in violence and property damage last night.

It has graphic pictures of guys beating up on other guys, people smashing stuff, and drunken idiots celebrating the chaos.

The Vancouver Police, no doubt, are happy to get so much evidence handed to them. And these idiots really do deserve to be prosecuted.

But it's also wierd to remind yourself that, despite the paranoia of conspiracy theorists, it is not "the government" but rather the actions of cameraphone-carrying concerned citizens that have made sure no place on Earth is hidden from observation, documentation, and publishing.

We have met Big Brother, my friends. And he is us.

Via Mashable

A new, and scary, kind of online PSA

If you haven't been to Please Rob Me yet, you should do so now. Not because you are in any imminent danger, but because it's an interesting new development in public service announcements.

Created by Dutch designers and developers Barry Borsboom, Frank Groeneveld, and Boy van Amstel, Please Rob Me is just a template for displaying a specific type of Twitter search, one that amalgamates Tweets from voluntarily location-aware applications like Foursquare, and uses the context to tell everyone that the Twitterer is no longer at home.

From the developers:

"Hey, do you have a Twitter account? Have you ever noticed those messages in which people tell you where they are? Pretty annoying, eh. Well, they're actually also potentially pretty dangerous. We're about to tell you why.

Don't get us wrong, we love the whole location-aware thing. The information is very interesting and can be used to create some pretty awesome applications. However, the way in which people are stimulated to participate in sharing this information, is less awesome.

...

The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you're definitely not... home. So here we are; on one end we're leaving lights on when we're going on a holiday, and on the other we're telling everybody on the internet we're not home."

And here's why I think this qualifies as a social marketing PSA:

"The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc. Because all this site is, is a dressed up Twitter search page. Everybody can get this information."

Mashable adds:

"These guys have a legitimate point. Stories about status updates leading to burglaries are becoming commonplace. You may remember that video podcaster Israel Hyman was robbed after tweeting that he was out was out town, and there’s even evidence to support the notion that burglars are turning to social media to find their targets."

It's an interesting way of raising awareness of the way social media power-users are giving away far more information than they may have bargained for. But I wonder if it breaks any privacy laws itself. We'll see.

Messing with social ads

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Facebook hijacking personal photos for their ads. Wasn't that big a deal to me, because it's just a matter of updating privacy settings. That's the least of my problems with social advertising.

I'm not a big fan of most of the social ads I get on Facebook. They tend to be rather stupid. But what really bothers me is what it says about how I'm being profiled.

For example, I don't post a lot of demographic information, but my profile does say that I am married. And yet it seems to get me more "singles" ads:



And then there's my age, which isn't public info but is (I assume) read by the advertising apps. So I get this:



I just hope it wasn't targeting using using biometrics :(

And then there's the content of my posts, often about the advertising industry. Which generated this unintentionally hilarious ad:



But, as an adman, I just hate being pidgeonholed by my own people. That's why I've set out to mess with Facebook ads in any way possible.

The first thing I did was become a fan of a bunch of random things, in a number of foreign languages. But all that got me was a bunch of travel ads.

So now what I'm doing is using the "feedback" function on social ads. If you click the little "X" at the top right of an ad, it asks you why you want to baleet it:

- Misleading
- Offensive
- Uninteresting
- Irrelevant
- Repetitive
- Other

"Annoying", "Trollicious" and "Makes me feel like a creepy old man" are not on the list, but you have the option to add those in.

So, I've started marking up every Facebook ad I hate. Online games, get-rich-quick schemes, fad diets, anything I think is stupid.

And what did it get me?



I give up.

Social Media in CLF 2.0

I'm speaking today to a Social Media Public Sector Workshop for the Government of Canada. It's an interesting topic, because while government clients are desperate to harness the power of social media for their social marketing, they are constrained by a number of rules and regulations.

One of the biggest is the Official Languages Act. According to some of my government clients, everything put online by the government — including user comments — must be translated so that it appears in both English and French. As you can imagine, this makes real-time online community building almost impossible (unless they employ a legion of simultaneous translators, as in the U.N.!)

Another huge challenge is privacy. The Government of Canada has rules about setting cookies, or take other information from users, except in very specific cases. And Google Analytics, which sends private information to the States, is also problematic — limiting measurement.

As well, there are accessibility standards, and a major concern about trolling. How can they possibly get anywhere near a social network? They're also gun shy, because of the responses to CRA's "underground economy" video contest on YouTube.

We were able to make some great headway in collaboration with Public Safety Canada on their 72 Hours emergency preparedness campaign. In short, we avoided the pitfalls of trying to engage people conversationally on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Instead, together we found and engaged interested bloggers and organizations directly, recruiting them to champion the cause and campaign on a secondary level.

As well, we worked with Lee Lefever to develop a Common Craft video on the subject, developing copy in English and French to meet language standards. Lee then shared the video through his own networks, and it showed up on YouTube, giving us even more reach:

We also developed a quiz on MSN about emergency preparedness that drove 47,826 people to getprepared.gc.ca, and created badges for partner sites. Future plans include a podcast strategy.

So my message to government today will be: don't be scared of social media. Just be careful, creative and resourceful.