Is Your Photo Being Used On Fake LinkedIn Profiles?

Spammers may be using your photo for the fake profiles they set up on LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, and other social networks. Here’s how I found out, and what you can do about it. While working on another post on how to avoid connecting with fake LinkedIn profiles, I took a closer look at a connection request I had received through LinkedIn, which I had identified as spam.

I knew it was a fake profile and a spammy request because the profile had a small number of connections, had only one company listed under experience, the title “Manager” was mispelled as “mangar,” and the first name on the profile was “Myrtle.” Any one of those items might be understandable by itself, but add them all up and it was easy to spot this as a fake profile. Normally all I would do in this situation would be to click the “X” and ignore the request. But I got curious and did a little more research, and that’s where things got interesting.

I knew the photo was of a real person, because I could see the photo. But whose photo was it? And what would they think of it being used by spammers? Google’s Chrome browser has a handy feature that allows you to right click on an image on a website, and then “Search Google for this Image.” The search can find matching images even if the file name, size, and dimensions have been changed. If Myrtle’s photo were being used by a spammer, I thought it might show up on other fake profiles. I’ve blurred details from the screenshot below and intentionally blocked the image to protect the identity of its owner.

Sure enough, the results I got from Google showed that the same photo was being used on other website profiles. The photo was used on a multi-level marketing message board profile page, a Google+ profile, and on a Facebook profile. The names associated with the photo were different on each website, and every profile but one appeared to be fake.

In one instance the photo appeared on a staff profile page for the employee of a law firm. The website, and the profile, appeared to be legitimate. I emailed the staff member, whose name was not Myrtle (although we’ll continue to use it to protect the innocent), and she confirmed the photo was hers. However, she knew nothing about her photo being used on these other websites and was understandably perplexed as to how and why it might have happened.

I explained to her that someone had found her photo, probably on the law firm website where she works, and had decided it was nice looking and would work well for their illegitimate uses. As to why, I’m less certain, although I did a bit of investigating to try and find out. I noticed the Facebook page with Myrtle’s photo linked to three websites, which I was able to track to the same owner. I contacted him via email, but he denied any knowledge of these fake profiles.

However, within 24 hours the Facebook and Google+ profile pages had disappeared. That was several months ago. Today, the LinkedIn profile is still active, and there are several other new social media profiles where Myrtle’s photo is being used under a host of pseudonyms. Whether they are being used by one person or many I can’t tell. In every case, I suspect this is part of someone’s online marketing strategy. But I’m an SEO expert, and I’m stumped as to how this could be an effective marketing strategy in any way.

Using Google’s “Search Google for this Image” feature you can search for your own image to see if it’s being used by someone else. What should you do if your photo is being used without your permission? Contact the website or the profile using it and chances are they’ll get scared and remove it. If it matters enough to you to pursue legal action, make sure you take screenshots of all the evidence, because the next time you come back they may be gone.

“We have systems in place to identify and remove fake or inappropriate profiles and we also make it easy for members to report a profile they believe to be fake,” said Crystal Braswell, Manager, Corporate Communications at LinkedIn. “To report a profile that you suspect is fake, just click on the black arrow at the top of the profile in question, just to the right of their photo and select ‘block or report’ from the drop down menu. This action triggers a review of the profile. Additional information around reporting a fake profile or filing a formal complaint can be found in our help center.” Other social networks offer similar functionality or you may report the matter to them through their support channels.

As far as preventing the infringement in the first place, there isn’t much you can do, short of being ugly. I was somewhat disappointed nothing turned up when I did a Google search for my own profile photos. You could also opt to never use a photo of yourself online. But excluding those two options, using Google’s image search to find photos and contacting the offender is the best way to assure your photo shows up where you want it to, and only where you want it to [Forbes].

Twitter to Add Photo Filters to Compete With Instagram

Image source from wired.com.

Twitter is finally learning a lesson from Facebook: If you can’t buy it, build it. In the coming months, Twitter plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos that will allow people to share altered images on Twitter and bypass Instagram, the popular mobilecentric photo-sharing network, according to people who work at the company but asked not to be named as they are not allowed to discuss unannounced projects.

The filters on Instagram make photos look like they were shot with 1960s Kodachrome or with 1890s sepia tone film. Although adding photo filters to Twitter may seem like a trivial addition to a social network that processes nearly a billion 140-character missives every two days, it could prove to be an important part of the company’s business.

As most smartphones are now equipped with high-resolution cameras, photography and mobile devices go together like peas and carrots. Flickr, which was once the go-to photo-sharing site on the Web, has since seen an exodus of people who have opted for Facebook or Instagram. Twitter has proved to be very popular among advertisers who want to reach people on smartphones, where the company’s audience tends to flock.

Carolyn Penner, a Twitter spokeswomen, declined to comment. According to one Twitter employee, the company’s V.I.T.’s, or Very Important Tweeters, as they are known internally, usually celebrities and media personalities, would be especially happy to see filters in the Twitter mobile apps. Most V.I.T.’s now use Instagram to take photos, and then share them on Twitter, where they often have a larger following.

Although Twitter considered a photocentric product acquisition for some time, the move to build its own filters was hastened after Facebook said it would buy Instagram for $1 billion. (The deal ended up closing at $715 million after Facebook’s precipitous stock drop.)

After the Instagram acquisition was announced, Twitter executives explored buying a competing photo service or application. Jack Dorsey, the company’s co-founder and executive chairman, and Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, both led the search, people close to the executives said. After meeting with and appraising some companies, Twitter’s executives decided the price tags were not worth the goods, and decided the company could build its own filters instead.

Although Twitter inked a deal with the photo-storage site Photobucket in June, the company has since started storing images on its own servers. Twitter is exploring adding other tools to its mobile applications, one employee said, including the ability to upload and possibly edit videos without having to go through a third-party application or service, like YouTube. Sadly, the Twitter-centric photo filters are not expected to be named after birds [NYTimes].

Tesco Removes Sign Suggesting Superheroes Are 'for boys' After Twitter Backlash

Tesco has removed a sign next to a superhero alarm clock reading "fun gifts for boys" from its stores after a social media backlash inspired by a seven-year-old girl. Karen Cole tweeted a photo of her daughter Maggie pointing to the sign at the Tower Park branch of the supermarket in Poole, Dorset, which was subsequently retweeted over 10,000 times.

In a message on her Twitter page, which is now protected, she wrote: "My superhero loving 7yo daughter not impressed when she spotted this sign in @Tesco today @LetToysBeToys." Maggie had pointed to the sign and said it was "stupid." The retailer has now removed the sign and a spokesperson insists it would "make a great gift for both girls and boys."

Mrs Cole explained her thinking behind the tweet in a blog post. "Last year [Maggie] started coming home from school saying some of her friends were suggesting some toys were for girls and some for boys. I explained that they were wrong, if the toy looks fun to play with then anybody should be able to play with it. She could play with knights and dragons and boys could play with dolls and kitchens if they wanted to."

"So when she noticed the sign in Tesco I was pleased she'd remembered our conversation and impressed by her indignation." Cole's tweet has generated much debate online in addition to the retweets, with many parents sending messages of support but others dismissing her concerns. One user wrote to say she was "turning her into a man-hating feminist."

She has addressed the issues in the post, and signs off with a final message of encouragement: "Your little girl makes it easier for my little girl to be herself. Thanks." Ironically, Tesco are currently running a social media campaign highlighting the power of just one tweet [Mashable].

Motorola’s Original Moto G Gets Android 5.0 Lollipop

Owners of the original Moto G are now receiving their much-anticipated Lollipop upgrade. The release makes Motorola’s most popular smartphone one of just a small few handsets released in 2013 that are already running Google’s latest Android software.

Rolling out to users in India first, Lollipop for the 2013 Moto G is essentially the same software that started reaching the newer 2014 Moto G last month. Users get a Material Design makeover the way Google intended it — without any third-party tweaks — as well as lock screen notifications, improved multitasking, and Smart Lock, which automatically disables lock screen security when your Android Wear device is nearby.

User can also look forward to Ambient Display, a flashlight toggle in the Quick Settings menu, Motorola Assist, and significant performance and battery life improvements. All of these things make Lollipop the Moto G’s biggest update yet. It also means this is a big download, so you’ll want to get it over Wi-Fi rather than a cellular connection.

Although this update hasn’t been spotted in other markets yet, it won’t be long before Motorola pushes it out elsewhere — providing no issues are found. And if you have a Moto G in India, look out for your software update notification, or search for the release manually via the software update section inside the Settings app [Motorola].

Twitter Adds Coupons to Its Commerce Plans

Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving 
up news on whats happening as it happens.

Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving up news on what’s happening, as it happens. Now, Twitter hopes that will work with commerce on its network, as well. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a program that introduced deals to tweets on the 284 million-user social network.

The program, Twitter Offers, is aimed at marketers who want to drive sales directly through Twitter advertisements and is an attempt to kick-start Twitter’s nascent efforts to build e-commerce into its platform. After buying a Promoted Tweet — a paid ad that appears as content inside a user’s Twitter stream — a marketer can insert a deal, such as a time-sensitive discount, which users can redeem on their smartphone.

Twitter says it believes that for advertisers, the program will be a novel way to woo new customers to their stores. “I think new customer acquisition is going to be the primary use case here,” said Nathan Hubbard, a former chief executive of Ticketmaster, who now leads Twitter’s commerce efforts. Mr. Hubbard said that marketers could use Twitter’s ad targeting software to focus on specific demographics of people who were most likely to buy products from their company.

The service is powered by CardSpring, a company that Twitter acquired in July that links coupons to a user’s credit or debit card, and automatically redeems the deal when a customer uses the card to buy an item. So, for example, if a user sees a Twitter Offer for an ice cream shop in their stream, they can link that deal to the credit card they have on file with their Twitter account. Later, if the user decides to visit the shop and buy a cone of rocky road using the same credit card, the Twitter Offer will automatically be applied to the purchase.

Twitter also stressed how easy it was to use the product. Merchants will not have to install new hardware to redeem offers, and users will not need to present a coupon at the point of sale in order to redeem it. It is not Twitter’s first foray into online commerce. The company announced it was testing a “buy button” that would allow users to buy physical goods, like coffee mugs and T-shirts, directly inside of Twitter from a select group of companies. But that program has not been introduced widely since it was announced in September.

Offers, however, could prove valuable to Twitter by bolstering its advertising business, which makes up the vast majority of the company’s revenue. As Twitter’s pitch goes, the Offers program provides advertisers a concrete way to measure their return on investment; if a user redeems a coupon, that marketer will know their ad has worked.

While Twitter is starting small with a handful of retailers, its ambitions are much larger. Eventually, Mr. Hubbard imagines Twitter will rely on the location data in users’ smartphones to deliver an advertisement with a Twitter Offer at the exact time a person is most likely to redeem it, including, perhaps, the very moment a user is walking by a retail store that has partnered with Twitter.

“I think location will play a huge part of this going forward,” Mr. Hubbard said.

While Twitter did not disclose the retailers it will begin working with on Twitter Offers, Mr. Hubbard said it would span a number of industries, including chain restaurants, big retailers and small mom-and-pop merchants. The program will begin in time for Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year [NYTimes]

Sony Pictures and F.B.I. Widen Inquiry into Hackers’ Attack

SONY Pictures Entertainment and FBI were seeking
more information about an attack computer system.

LOS ANGELES — Sony Pictures Entertainment and the F.B.I. on Wednesday were seeking more information about an attack that crippled Sony’s computer systems — including whether North Korea, or perhaps a former employee, was responsible.

“The investigation continues into this very sophisticated cyberattack,” the studio said in a statement. It added that a news report by the technology site Re/code, which said that North Korea had been identified as the source of the attack and that the studio planned an imminent announcement, was “not accurate.”

Sony was hit by hackers on Nov. 24, resulting in a companywide computer shutdown and the leak of corporate information, including the multimillion-dollar pre-bonus salaries of executives and the Social Security numbers of rank-and-file employees. A group calling itself the Guardians of Peace has taken credit for the attacks.

The studio, working with various law enforcement agencies, has been exploring whether the breach was related to one of Sony’s coming movies, “The Interview,” a comedy about two American tabloid TV journalists recruited to assassinate the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. North Korean officials have been sharply critical of the film.

The leaked data is likely to raise embarrassing questions about Deloitte’s own insider-threat program. The firm has aggressively marketed its digital threat intelligence services and has been providing advice to corporations about how to protect data from employee leaks [NYTimes]

Former Google+ Designer Slams The Service for Being 'Facebook Lite'

Google+ Plus slams the service for being Facebook Like.
He also calls out Google Plus for any meaningful.

Google+ is a social network "adrift at sea," representing a big missed opportunity for the company, a former Google employee who worked on the service says. Chris Messina, who worked on Google+ user experience design before leaving the company over a year ago, wrote a long post on Medium, in which he criticizes the service for not delivering on its initial vision of empowering users with the vast amount of data that Google collects about them.

He also calls out Google+ for not having any meaningful differentiators over its more successful competitor, Facebook. "Most people would likely describe Google+ as a newsfeed, a kind of Facebook-lite," he wrote. Messina, who is often credited with inventing the hashtag, acknowledges that Google's social network has many devout users, and that it's become a go-to service for a few specific topics (like photography).

But by and large, Google+ is basically a Facebook also-ran, he accuses But by and large, Google+ is basically a Facebook also-ran, he accuses, and it was hamstrung in part because of the ultra-cautious name. Still reeling from the failure of Google Buzz, the company chose "Google+" because it "could just drop the '+' and pretend the 'project' never existed," Messina says.

Had Google focused on the initial promise of the project, when it was called "Google Me," Messina believes Google could have won converts to its social network by being their preferred "trusted party" for the information they share online. With that data, Google Me/Google+ could then create meaningful connections based on that information, all the while keeping control over privacy and sharing in the hands of the user.

Although Google has been very clearly moving away from the Google+ brand in recent months, that idea of a personalized Google is stronger than ever, seen in many of its context-based products like Google Now. Messina's criticism, however, appears to call out Google+ for not surfacing meaningful social interactions or content based on that identity — that it's essentially "leaving a ton of value on the table."

Google's next move for its social network is unclear. As Messina notes, since Gundotra left there have been few meaningful updates to Google+, and it may end up getting a full rebranding at some point. But user context and identity can only become more relevant parts of our online experiences, and there's no question Google is well positioned to take advantage of them. The only question is how big a role that Google+, at least in its current form, will play [Mashable].

Twitter Begins Testing a ‘Buy’ Button for Instant Purchases by Its Users

Twitter is Already a real time emporium for news.

Twitter is already a real-time emporium for news, photos, video clips and 140-character snippets of thought. Now, the real-time social network wants to be a shopping mall for real products, too. The company announced on Monday that it would begin publicly testing a “buy” button that can be embedded in posts to allow users to buy a product with a couple of clicks.

The feature — initially limited to mobile versions of Twitter and aimed at selling limited-edition or time-sensitive items like T-shirts and event tickets — could eventually create a new revenue stream for the social network, which currently relies on advertising for virtually all of its income.The test comes as competition in the world of mobile e-commerce intensifies.

Still, billions of dollars of online sales are already associated with social networks. Many marketers post messages on services like Twitter and Facebook promoting their products and offering links to external sites where they can be bought.Now Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are trying to take a step out of that process by offering customers the ability to buy advertised products instantly.

The service will then prompt them to enter credit card and shipping information or, if it is already on file, ask them to click again to confirm the purchase.“I think of Twitter as the place to connect with the things that you love,” said Nathan Hubbard, a former chief executive of Ticketmaster, who joined Twitter a year ago to lead its commerce efforts. “How can you bring a transaction into the experience to make it additive?”

Mr. Hubbard said the test would initially be limited to a small number of Twitter users in the United States and would include items for sale from 19 entities, including popular musicians like Rihanna and Eminem, nonprofit groups like the Nature Conservancy and Donors Choose, and the retailers Home Depot and Burberry for long time activity [NYTimes].

Osborne to throw NHS £2bn lifeline

The money will fund 'frontline' hospital services 
and plug an NHS budget hole (Christopher Furlong)

GEORGE OSBORNE will announce an extra £2bn to fund the NHS this week in an attempt to neutralise Labour’s attacks on the coalition’s handling of the health service.

The chancellor will use his autumn statement on Wednesday to say the government has found the extra money to fund “frontline” hospital services and help plug a looming black hole in the NHS budget.

He will take to the airwaves today to argue that only a Conservative-led government that builds a strong economy is capable of properly funding the NHS — a blueprint for the general election campaign he and David Cameron hope will deliver victory next year.

The chancellor balanced giveaways for middle-class families and small businesses with a raid on the most expensive properties and banks, as he moved to spike Labour’s guns. The chancellor will use his autumn statement on Wednesday to say the government has found the extra money to fund “frontline” hospital services and help plug a looming black hole in the NHS budget.

He will take to the airwaves today to argue that only a Conservative-led government that builds a strong economy is capable of properly funding the NHS — a blueprint for the general election campaign he and David Cameron hope will deliver victory next year.

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