Last Friday Google announced their latest advertising technique that has privacy-worshipers everywhere completely outraged. Similar to Facebook, Google advertisements will now feature users’ profile pictures from Google+ next to brands that they recommend. For instance, if you are searching for a sushi restaurant on Google, your friend’s profile picture might appear next to an advertisement for a sushi restaurant near you.

In an effort to stay competitive with Facebook, Google has been very quick to copy their advertising features. First they created “+1”, which is similar to the “like” button on Facebook, and now they are including users’ pictures just like Facebook did with “Sponsored Stories”. Google should be wary of this advertising technique because Facebook has been sued over “Sponsored Stories”, which put friends’ profile pictures next to brands that they liked on social networks.

Although you can opt-out of including your picture on Google+, people are very upset by this privacy violation. Only one day after Google+ made the announcement, people started protesting by changing their profile pictures to a picture of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. I’m interested to see if people are going to retaliate further by posting even more obscene profile pictures or if Google is going to figure out a method, such as bribery, to encourage users to make recommendations and share their profile pictures. Stay tuned.

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