MySpace, the pre-Facebook fad with over a 110 million active users, which lets individuality spill out over a Web page, from layout backgrounds to music to likes and dislikes, has now found a way for the customization of not only the profile itself, but the advertising that runs on it.

According to the New York Times, the social networking site MySpace has been experimenting with technology over the past six months to develop advertisements that correlate to the personal information users leave on their profile pages.

It is hoped that these ads customized to members’ stated enthusiasms will improve the effectiveness of advertising and promoting new advertisers as well says the New York Times. Fox also hopes that this technology will help MySpace regain the momentum and attention that was turned to Facebook.

But privacy advocates argue that users of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are not aware they are being monitored and that these current targeting advertisements are the first step in what a has become a huge arms race to find revealing information about Internet users.

“People should be able to congregate online with their friends without thinking that big brother, whether it is Rupert Murdoch or Mark Zuckerberg, are stealthily peering in,” said Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington.

MySpace and Facebook executives say that they are doing no harm and that they only use information their members make publicly available. Executives also say that they plan on letting users choose whether or not to be apart of the ad-targeting program on MySpace.

Kara Leinhos, a sophomore at Biola, says she checks her MySpace about three times a day.

“I’m indifferent toward the advertising, simply because I don’t really pay attention to the ads, and I don’t ever click on the links. They don’t really faze me,” she said.

Whether or not this ad-targeting scheme will have a substantial effect is not clearly seen yet, but it is hoped that this type of advertising will provide new abilities for businesses and create more hype for MySpace.