Facebook Is Using You
By LORI ANDREWS
Published: February 4, 2012
LAST week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public. It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion. But unlike other big-ticket corporations, it doesnt have an inventory of widgets or gadgets, cars or phones. Facebooks inventory consists of personal data yours and mine.
Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users. If you indicate that you like cupcakes, live in a certain neighborhood and have invited friends over, expect an ad from a nearby bakery to appear on your page. The magnitude of online information Facebook has available about each of us for targeted marketing is stunning. In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States.
Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85 percent of its total revenue. Yet Facebooks inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others. Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads. Hundreds of other companies have also staked claims on peoples online data by depositing software called cookies or other tracking mechanisms on peoples computers and in their browsers. If youve mentioned anxiety in an e-mail, done a Google search for stress or started using an online medical diary that lets you monitor your mood, expect ads for medications and services to treat your anxiety.
Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger and you may never know why youve been turned down.
more
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)It blocks out all the advertising crap
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)ONLY a certain market and not waste ad dollars marketing to people who I KNOW have no interest or live outside my area.
I don't think it's evil.
If people don't like it, they don't have to use FB.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)I don't like either one of them, but Google is pretending by saying 'don't be evil.'
Facebook is for the most part using your info for their business model. Google is selling your info to all comers, including questionable firms overseas.
I barely use Facebook, but avoid Google like the plague.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)DavidDvorkin
(19,513 posts)In my judgement, I'm getting more from FB than its getting from me.
The same applies to Google.
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)I've rarely been more flattered.
I really don't have a problem with cookies that are targeted to my shopping history. Amazon does that, and lets me know when things I've looked at are discounted. Netflix does that and can tell me what movies I may like.
If my phone could text me when a bakery I was passing had baklava? Hell Yeah!
Even with the occasional ad for Black Singles in the mix. lol
DavidDvorkin
(19,513 posts)I order stuff for myself and for my wife from my account. Our orders are extremely different, and not just because of the sex difference. Amazon tries to combine our past orders when it makes recommendations, and the results can be weird.