FacebookVille & the Evil Facebook Ads

Once upon a time… (when Facebook did not yet take over the world and FacebookVille was a pleasant virtual town), a little girl (aka me, by the way) was innocently browsing through her once-favorite Social Networking Site until suddenly she saw an ad that caught her attention… (No, it was not a pair of hot pink shoes from Kim Kardashian’s glamorous ShoeDazzle collection.)

Anyway, the Evil Facebook had allowed a third-party to secretly use the little girl’s friend’s friend-slash-roomate’s profile picture in an ad without telling anyone! Worse of all, the ad with the little girl’s friend’s friend-slash-roomate’s face on it attempted to lure the little girl into clicking on the ad. Luckily, the little girl was smart and did not click on the ad.

The next day (okay fine, immediately), she asked her friend’s friend (via Facebook chat and wall) if she knew about the ad and her friend’s friend said “No.” Afraid and terrorized, the three little girls knew they had uncovered a dark secret: that the Evil Facebook was planning on taking over the world.

Fearing for her life and identity, the little girl’s friend’s friend decided to leave FacebookVille — at least for a while because her mother had told her that there can only be not-so-happy endings full of intrusive data tracking and dangerous phishing. But this was only the beginning of the Facebook Ad Age…

Later on, more ads were quickly appearing all over FacebookVille but they were slightly different from the ancient Facebook ads. (For example, the famous Internet Personality of all Worlds including YoutubeVille, GoogleVille, TwitterVille, and LAVille called iJustine was shocked when she saw that Facebook had created a fake ad for a fake birthday!) And there were plenty of similar ads. They were carefully-designed, hand-picked and trained to attack strategically. They were tailored to phish, track, and ultimately determine the lives of the villagers of FacebookVille.

For digi-centuries, these Tailored Ads reigned FacebookVille. Terrorizing the villagers with their aggressive marketing and sneaking onto the profiles of the villagers of FacebookVille when they were asleep, these ads were more dangerous and cleverer than the ancient Facebook ads. (Yes, I am allowed to invent the word “cleverer”… Shh! Let’s not ruin the story.) The Tailored Ads got so powerful that they could even pretend to be “friends” with the villagers. And the villagers of FacebookVille unfortunately fell for the trap when they saw that 20+ of their friends “liked” these Tailored Ads… Soon these Tailored Ads became the Elite Tailored Ads.

Luckily one day, a group of privacy advocates and internet lawyers from a Far Away Land came to save FacebookVille. Armed with the Social Network’s “Bill of Rights”, the brave men marched heroically to defend FacebookVille and the villagers gained power to fight back against the evilness of Facebook…