I used to play with them showing until I realized they were links to the website. I'd be multi-tabling and then all of a sudden the web would pop up. I turned them off. The ones I have don't really require any skill to acquire so not much info from them. Once in a while I'll run across a player with a FTP Academy badge so that tells me they are working on their game for whatever that's worth.
You can show the badges without having the links live. Go to the Options on any Full Tilt table > Badges tab and on the drop down menu select display badges without links.