Facebook may have erred again on the side of lack of privacy, writes Slight Paranoia. A recent technical study entitled “Challenges in Measuring Online Marketing Systems” had been published by a Microsoft researcher and two researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and if what it implies is true, all Facebook users should give a second thought to their Facebook data, even if it is marked private. In particular, the research suggests that a loophole in the ubiquitous social network might actually be outing gay customers to third party advertisers.
Facebook outs gay users who list sexual preference
Facebook outing gay users is not an exercise in mind reading, content scrubbing or candid photo analysis. Whether a Facebook user is interested in men or women is something they can post. This can be a fact of Facebook. This had been something Zuckerberg had in mind. It had been part of why he begun Facebook. Facebook targets ads to customers depending on the demographic data presented by the user, which is why it wouldn’t be surprising if ads were targeted based on sexual choice.
There was a study done that showed a fictional homosexual person on Facebook getting very different ads than the other fictional individuals. This is something the Facebook privacy settings are supposed to protect from occurring though. Interestingly, ads to the fake lesbian user profile received ads that weren’t very different than the fabricated hetero female profile. Gawker explains that homosexual and straight male marketing just implies that placing an advertisement for a homosexual man on a straight man’s profile might be really bad while women do not have this exact same problem and can see all the ads.
The ad sees your reference information and also takes your ID
It appears the battle that protection groups have with Facebook is being seen. Advertisers get more information when you click their ad. This includes your email address, browsing data and IP address. If homosexual users click the ad, their data about being homosexual is uploaded. An advertisement that is targeted toward gay men will go on someone’s profile, even if the user has selected to keep their sexual choice as private. This means that more “gay-themed” advertising will start to appear after clicking on one ad, claims Gawker.
Articles cited
Saikat
saikat.guha.cc/pub/imc10-ads.pdf
Gawker
gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-advertisers
Paranoia
paranoia.dubfire.net/2010/10/more-private-data-leakage-at-facebook.html
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