Tech | February 05, 2012 | 39 comments

Facebook Is Using You

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html?_r=1&hp

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 Facebook’s 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 people’s online data by depositing software called cookies or other tracking mechanisms on people’s computers and in their browsers. If you’ve 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 you’ve been turned down.

Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages. Employers sometimes decide whether to hire people based on their online profiles, with one study indicating that 70 percent of recruiters and human resource professionals in the United States have rejected candidates based on data found online. A company called Spokeo gathers online data for employers, the public and anyone else who wants it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html?_r=1...
  1. groups:
    Community,   Tech,   Current Cultural Issues,   Orwellian Nightmare,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Facebook,  Internet Privacy,  targeted adverstising;
  3.     
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39 comments // Facebook Is Using You

  • LivingPong
  • warman1138
  • cherry5000
  • LivingPong
    • +2
      LivingPong  

    • It biometrics your face, though if you make some naff account to upload pictures of other peoples face you can identify them. You can also make other naff accounts and tag your face with random made up names. Tag swap randomness with your friends, they are selling your data, might as well ensure that data is wrong.

    • 4 months ago
  • ampersand
  • LivingPong
  • ampersand
    • +1
      ampersand  
    • LivingPong:

      Never used it. Never will.
      I don't have any need to market myself but if I wanted to create a social network presence I hope I'd be sane enough to delegate it to another trusted being who themselves would be using a plausible but wholly fictional avatar.

    • 4 months ago
  • ecoalex
  • LivingPong
  • Tayllerand
  • pjacobs51
    • +1
      pjacobs51  

    • I get the same adds on Current, under the 'from the community' side bar, as I do on facebook. Just depends on what I was looking at the night before.

    • 4 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • pjacobs51
  • Vierotchka
  • pjacobs51
  • Vierotchka
  • Dagum
    • +1
      Dagum  

    • If you like social networking and privacy you try Folkdirect. They have great privacy policy and controls. There is no third party apps that comprise your privacy, no advertisements based you your data, the layout is a lot like facebook, and FolkDirect will post an invitation to the network on your Facebook wall and let you upload contacts from popular e-mail services and social networks, including Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, and Orkut.

      http://www.folkdirect.com/home/

    • 4 months ago
  • EmperorThan
    • +1
      EmperorThan  

    • The only reason I haven't deleted my Facebook is purely out of peer pressure. And I must say it's the lamest drug I've ever tried. lol

      Also cus I know you can't ever delete a Facebook account, not completely at least. So it would be like an empty gesture.

    • 4 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • EmperorThan
  • Vierotchka
  • Dagum
    • +4
      Dagum  

    • http://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy#inforeceived

      Remember to read the "Terms of Use" and the "Privacy Policy". They're binding Contracts that bind you AND the company.

      You could sue them for breach of contract if they don't abide by the terms.

      That being said, you should pick what website, or social networking site you use based on the terms. Because you are CONSENTING to these provisions. In many cases You consent to have your data mined and given to third parties.

      Also a company may have a great privacy policy but near the bottom it will have a
      weasel provision that allows them to unilaterally modify the agreement at anytime without noticing you.

    • 4 months ago
  • kennymotown
    • +4
      kennymotown  

    • Like anything that gets to big, it gets out of control. Social media of all sorts can be a good thing, i.e Arab Spring. Putting an end to FB, will never happen and with it's public offering on the Stock Exchange more evilness will accompany it. Sometimes I wish I had never joined it, and then there are times I have found people I had lost contact with. I'm kind of split with it at this time, in fact I have tried to disband my account one time and it (The Process) was too energy consuming so I gave up.

    • 4 months ago
  • circlesquared
    • +1
      circlesquared  
    • kennymotown:

      we have more control in all the countries that participated in the Arab Spring now than we have ever literally had in the past because this tool was used against humanity and not for them. I can feel the sentiment as if it is in the air we breathe that people must come together, but FB is being used to prod and herd us in a direction not of our choosing.

    • 4 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • +2
      Wyley_Wombat  
    • kennymotown:

      I never joined Fecesbook and have no intention to join it in the future. However, since my wife is on it I am sure she posted a picture of me somewhere. Besides that I am sure that information about me exists not only on on FB but on a myriad of other places to numerous to track. Today's world is far more Orwellian than many people suspect.

    • 4 months ago
  • kennymotown
  • Leen61
  • freehit
  • TanzaniteDiamonds
  • maasanova
    • +5
      maasanova  

    • Facebook and Twitter have shown to be more trouble than they are worth and I finally pulled the plug on my Facebook account just yesterday.

      When a company's CEO calls his users "dumbfucks" you can assume that the company is probably up to no good.

    • 4 months ago
  • bailey78
  • maasanova
    • +4
      maasanova  
    • bailey78:

      No, but I really felt uncomfortable on Facebook as I was using my real name like a dumbass whereas I use a handle on other sites. I know "they" can find out who I am if they want, but why make it easy for them?

    • 4 months ago
  • circlesquared
    • +3
      circlesquared  

    • when Facebook started there was no advertising and I saw the value of connections it offered to humanity. I wondered how this non advertising site could all the sudden be worth billions until I realized how much our government would invest to have such info laid at their feet everyday. Like most things these days that could be used for gain this is being used against us instead.

    • 4 months ago
  • bailey78
  • circlesquared
  • bailey78
  • Wyley_Wombat
  • ampersand
    • +4
      ampersand  

    • Here's another interesting fact form the last paragraph of the article:
      "Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy. When an Atlanta man returned from his honeymoon, he found that his credit limit had been lowered to $3,800 from $10,800. The switch was not based on anything he had done but on aggregate data. A letter from the company told him, “Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.”

      One has to wonder if chronicling every social event in one's life in public is actually a very smart hing to do.

    • 4 months ago
ampersand
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