Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Ads Could 'Out' Gay Users
itwbennett writes "Researchers at Microsoft Research India and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany have written a paper showing that a users may be inadvertently revealing their sexual preference to advertisers. 'One example was an advertisement for a nursing program at a medical college in Florida, which was only shown to gay men. The researchers said that persons seeing the ad would not know that it had been exclusively aimed at them solely based on their sexuality, nor would they realize that clicking on the ad would reveal to the advertiser, by implication, their sexual preference in addition to other information they might expect to be sent, such as their IP (Internet Protocol) address.' For its part, Facebook 'downplayed the study, saying that the site does not pass any personally identifiable information back to an advertiser.'"
I am so glad the fine summary expanded that abbreviation for us. The Slashdot crowd would have a really hard time knowing what an IP address is, that it refers to the Internet Protocol, and would never figure out how to look up such information if in doubt. That's a fine service the submitter and editors have done for us. They clearly know their target audience -- what professionals they are! I can see why the editors are too busy to perform basic proofreading, spellchecking, and the correction of blatantly inaccurate claims.
By the way, just keep using Facebook. It's the tool of choice for the dumb masses. Keep using Facebook and then keep acting surprised when yet another privacy violation happens. It amuses those of us who know better and I mean it's high-quality entertainment. The only people who know entertainment like that are the shrinks who work at mental institutions who get to watch a retard (or "window licker") bang his head against the wall over and over and then complain that his head hurts. Actually the Facebook geniuses are even more funny, because they think they're normal. At least the retard in the institution has admitted that he has a problem and is seeking treatment for his brand of insanity.
Maybe you just shouldn't use Safari when accessing Facebook. It's not Facebook's fault when your browser sends a Safari user-agent string, some third-party advertiser notices this when a request is made for their ad, and they serve up an ad targeting homosexuals. That's just what you get when using a browser, operating system and hardware that are almost exclusively preferred by homosexuals around the world.
By the way, just keep using Facebook. It's the tool of choice for the dumb masses.
Oh, it's so damned simple isn't it? I suggest you Tool off back to ToolLand (R) (TM) ..tool