A few days ago I wondered if Facebook had ignored my “dont-put-my-name-in-ads” Social ad setting when I appeared to endorse Mitt Romney without me knowing. It turns out that Facebook users have no way to opt out of being listed in a Sponsored Ad. Thus Facebook can use your name as fodder for any advertising campaign that is seen between your Facebook friends.

From Facebook’s page explaining Sponsored Ads (emphasis mine):

Sponsored stories
Many of the things you do on Facebook (like “liking” a Page) are posted to your timeline and shared in News Feed. But there’s a lot to read in News Feed. That’s why we allow people to “sponsor” your stories to make sure your friends see them. For example, if you RSVP to an event hosted by a local restaurant, that restaurant may want to make sure your friends see it so they can come too.

If they do sponsor a story, that story will appear in the same place ads usually do or in your News Feed under the heading “Sponsored” or something similar. Only people that could originally see the story can see the sponsored story, and no personal information about you (or your friends) is shared with the sponsor.

Your Show my social actions in Facebook Ads setting only controls ads with social context. It does not control Sponsored Stories, ads or information about Facebook’s services and features, or other Facebook content.

I’m guessing that whomever is hacking accounts for Romney is doing it almost exclusively to put these names in the ads. It’s probably not just to pad the page fan numbers as any old fake accounts could do that. It seems very closely tied to the advertising. Advertising, as I have said before, is one of those things that Facebook tracks very, very closely.

Got this in last night from a victim of Romney Facebook hacking:

I had been off my Facebook account for about a month, when I suddenly started getting messages from friends that my site had pro-Romney and Republican Party stuff on it! I don’t have a phone that has texting so I had not made a mistake with a mobile phone application.

This is appalling. The Republicans have stooped to violating indivual expression.

And this one came in yesterday:

My mother ran up the stairs and told me my cousn, [NAME REDACTED], is a Romney supporter and had liked his page. At first I thought, she’s older, perhaps it was a mistake.

Literally hours later I got several phone calls from friends, family, and colleagues asking me is I was now “turning”. I couldn’t believe it. Someone had falsely liked Romney’s page under my profile. I have been apart of many events to rally for the Obama vote so imagine the tone of some of those people when they called me. I’ve spent several hours explaining myself. This is a huge violation and I’m not surprised if Romney is behind it.

The sad thing is, my cousin doesn’t even know how to remove a like.

Overnight the Hacked by Mitt Romney page gained 89 more users (Real? Fake? Hard to tell anymore.). I’ve already been Slashdotted, so what other site could be driving traffic? Reddit? Fark? Anyone know?