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Facebook Ads Could 'Out' Gay Users

Posted by timothy on from the i'll-out-gay-you dept.

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.'"

3 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Rule number 1 by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Never put anything on Facebook that you would not tell your parents and your boss.

    --
    If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    1. Re:Rule number 1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Rule number 2: Clicking an ad sends information you didn't know was on your facebook to your parents and your boss.

  2. Which part of this is "inadvertent"? by bhartman34 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ads were served to males who declared themselves to be interested in other males, and females who declared themselves to be interested in other females.

    Exactly where is the problem here? The users are outing themselves. Shouldn't this be filed under, "...and water is wet"?