Google will start using your data to sell products to friends

Google recently announced an update to its terms of service that outlines how it might use your content in advertisements across its network.

Google users will soon find themselves unwittingly advertising products for the company, thanks to a massive change Google is making to its terms of service. First reported by the New York Times, the change categorizes a user's follows, comments, and +1s as "shared endorsements" for a product or service. These shared endorsements can be used to build ads across the platform, pulling in a user's profile name and photograph to help boost the ad's credibility.

In simple language for those with a Google Account, a +1 you give or review you write might be used alongside an advertisement for the business you endorsed. For example, "The +1 you gave your favorite restaurant could be included in an ad that the restaurant runs through Google”.

Google hasn't specified what these new ads will look like, but the expanded terms of service would allow much more social information to be included in the shared endorsement. The changes will be advertised on Google's homepage and in search results, so the company hopes that users will be aware of the changes before they go into place on November 11th. Google will build ads using information from adult users, so anyone under the age of 18 will be automatically opted out.

In case you don't want Google using your information, you can opt out by navigating to the shared endorsement setting, unchecking the box at the bottom, and clicking "Save". The setting will be on by default, but if you previously told Google that you did not want your +1's to appear in ads, then of course we'll continue to respect that choice as a part of this updated setting," Google said.

Google+ has never enjoyed the organic success of its competitors, and the enormous, potentially severe privacy implications of the change certainly aren't going to help. The new advertising model is similar to Facebook, which shows which of your friends have liked a business or service on its social networking site. As with Facebook, Google provides the ability to opt out of the new shared endorsement program. Users who have previously opted out of sharing their +1s with friends will also be opted out of the expanded shared endorsements, but for everyone else the new feature will be automatically enabled on November 11th.