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Facebook Patents Inferring Income of Users
theodp writes "Among the patents granted to Facebook this week by the USPTO is one for Inferring Household Income for Users of a Social Networking System. 'For example,' Facebook explains, 'an assumption might be made about a user that reads CNN.com and nytimes.com every day that the user is in a higher income bracket than another user that only reads TMZ.com and PerezHilton.com on the theory that a user who reads newspapers might be assumed to make more money than a user who only reads celebrity gossip blogs.' Advertisements such as those for travel packages, cars, and home mortgages, Facebook adds, 'are targeted to users based on income bracket,' which might also be inferred by 'gathering and analyzing different types of information about a user's geographic location.' Hey, what could go wrong?"
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This is why I use EasyPrivacy list in adblock plus to keep Facebook from getting that info. They know you read a page if it has a "Like" button on it.
FB, you shouldn't stop there! just patent all statistical research!
It doesn't really matter if the algorithm is wrong for an individual, as long as it it generally correct for the population.
The reason Facebook has any advertising income, and therefore value as a company, is that it has the ability to provide very directed advertising.
If you want to target people who read cnn.com and nytimes.com, why not just advertise there like you always could.
They do know everyone selling data + advertising already does this, right? This is a VERY obvious use of aggregated data.
I declare Shenanigans!
Shenanigans on Facebook!
Shenanigans on the USPTO!
They are trying to scam us now and it needs to be stopped Officer Barbrady!
Whenever someone uses a correlation statistic? What about when someone uses a set of data to infer something about other populations?
It may sound an awful lot like they patented statistics, correlations, and sampling, but it's different 'cause it's on a social network. Totally different.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Not sure how redlining applies here, seems like much of a stretch from the 1934 National Housing Act* proscribing to the FHA to create redlining three decades before it got that name, to displaying advertisements based on viewing habits.
*See first paragraph in the History section of submitters link on redlining.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
what's next? inferring men genitalia size? i can't believe the general public just doesn't care about their privacy being so violated in exchange for a beef stew. But then i heard that having no facebook profile is an indicator for being a psychopath, so who knows anymore.
In a post-capitalist economy, this is the 1% new power version of racial profiling. Think of it as a form of denial of services. You'll never see what the 1% does much less enjoy. Knowledge is power and denying information denies access to all but the 1% who matter.
If enough users launch it, it will completely mess up all these statistical correlations and eventually provide anonymity by increasing the noise.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If algorithms can be patented, then sure. If FB is using a unique algorithm to infer income, it might be granted (that I think patenting mathematics is absurd is irrelevant - if you believe your algorithm is so great, keep it a secret. Application of mathematics to one area shouldn't be patentable). I'd be surprised if Amazon doesn't look at your shopping history and suggest products in your price range. If I never bought anything over $25, why should they show me a product costing over $10,000?
On the other hand, what does this have to do with redlining? My outrage that statistics is being patented has nothing to do with the fact that FB should be allowed to show whatever ads to whomever they please. They are not a government organization (and haven't taken taxpayer money) that shouldn't be allowed to discriminate between consumers.
corn is a powerful consumer classification that segments the UK population. By analysing demographic data, social factors, population and consumer behaviour, it provides precise information and an understanding of different types of people. Acorn provides valuable consumer insight helping you target, acquire and develop profitable customer relationships and improve service delivery.
This is just another case of adding "... on a computer" or "... over wifi" to something that's already an established practice to gain a patent.
Doesn't bother me. I said Fuck FaceBook years ago.
There is an browser addon called Disconnect that blocks your browser from loading most if not all tracking resources, this includes the social media buttons used by Facebook to track your browsing. I put it onto every browser I come into contact with that supports it. https://disconnect.me/
I think it's more likely that they can infer what you make BY WHAT CURRENT JOB YOU LIST. Someone listed as working as a lab tech somewhere is obviously going to make more than someone listed as working at McDonald's.
Statistics doesn't pigeon-hole you. It discovers what factors tend to influence people grouped with you, by how much, and how reliably. Like psychohistory, it only works on groups, the larger the better. The "pigeon-hole" is fuzzy and somewhat arbitrary. You still (maybe) have free will and are an individual... just like everybody else.
Pretty, pretty low.
It's a statistical measure. People who read such things generally have a low income. The fact that you specifically read them and don't have a low income is irrelevant; the advertisers don't care about you as an individual. The large number of people who do fit the profile make the advertising more lucrative to a degree which far overwhelms the small number of people like you who make it less lucrative.
Linux Mint users should be easy targets, as they always openly brag how they switched to it from Ubuntu.
Facebook's advertising is all about micro targeting based on a user's behavior, open to all with the smarts to read it via the Open Graph API.
Advertising (TV, Radio, Banners, Internet) is sold on an open market bidding system. You bid for impressions (CPI) and clicks (CPC). Coveted demographics - such as 16-20 year old females, or wealthy folks have very high bid rates. So being able to infer people's income makes good business sense.
Facebook has a good model, as you bid for placement based on age, location, brands they fan, web pages they like, number of friends, etc. as opposed to blindly putting advertising out there and hoping the right folks read it. Many local small businesses would be out of business if it wasn't for this. Those are the folks who are creating most of the new jobs. Google, on the other hand, uses your search behavior, and tracking cookies left by banner ads + stuff you look at. If you use free or paid gmail the emails you send and receive come into play. That's why it's free, of course. The other "free" email services do the same thing.
There's a database called PRIZM that's in widespread use that determines relative income based on zip code - PRIZM has been around since the direct mail days. My guess is that Facebook either does not want to pay for this, or because it doesn't have user's zip codes, only cities, it thinks it can do better based on data it has in the social stream.
Being able to predict the precise moment when purchase intent is realized... is the holy grail of digital marketing right now, with billions of dollars being spent on the problem. Every piece of data about your online behavior is being analyzed against what you actually bought (and if you're on a mobile device, where you were at the time). It is only a matter of time before this is perfected - e.g. the moment you realize you are hungry an ad for nearest food joint of your preference will appear in front of you... This trend is as unstoppable as dawn, and if you're smart, you're trying to patent every single idea that might remotely be involved in this.
If you really think you can protect yourself from companies analyzing your behavior, you're dreaming. Being able to deliver the ad to you at the precise moment of purchase intent will save businesses large and small billions and billions of dollars... And the first company to make that work, will be profitable beyond belief.
Murphy was an optimist
Another confirmation that our idea of the internet has devolved in the hands of entrepeneurs.
Agreed. There is probably plenty of prior art, but one would be crazy to challenge the patent because:
Congratulations, Facebook, you are a patent troll
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Also, don't go to retail stores because they can tell a lot about you by the way you dress and talk.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Isn't this exactly what marketing research companies have done before. A quick web search says :
corn is a powerful consumer classification that segments the UK population. By analysing demographic data, social factors, population and consumer behaviour, it provides precise information and an understanding of different types of people. Acorn provides valuable consumer insight helping you target, acquire and develop profitable customer relationships and improve service delivery.
This is just another case of adding "... on a computer" or "... over wifi" to something that's already an established practice to gain a patent.
No, this is another case of not reading the claims. The patent claims go into confidence metrics and applying advertising criteria based on those metrics. Now, maybe there's other prior art out there that teaches that element, but your link is the equivalent of saying "Tesla got a patent on the power train in the Model S? But isn't that really just a Ford Model T adding '... with a battery'?"
How about them Knicks?
This is a ridiculous patent and should be invalidated. As others have said, this is correlation. Nothing patentable here at all.
I taught data mining in college. This is a standard example of relating attributes to income. It is not novel.
WHAT THE FUCK. I don't normally give useless responses.. but WHAT THE FUCK. PATENT REFORM NOW.
Is this so bad? If they assume you make good income and are highly intelligent because you visit slashdot daily who does that hurt? At least this is something you can control. I think it's funny Facebook patented this, pretty sure this has been going on as long as advertising has existed.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
My Town is unusual in that we have an equal spread of folks in each quintile. That is, we have a few legit plutocrats and a few folks "on scholarship" for school lunch, and everyone in between. Unless you are the NSA or IRS (or both) income is a tricky thing to guess.
It backfires on them, though, too. Because I'm on disability, I have all kinds of time to read newspapers and browse links friends have posted. It sure as heck doesn't provide the income they're dreaming of raping and pillaging, though. :)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You don't have to unblock Facebook to use most comment sections. More of the major new sites are using either Disqus or a site-specific instance of LiveFyre than are using Facebook Comments as their enhanced commenting platform. USA Today is probably the biggest site using Facebook Comments. A lot of local news stations and small-town papers have moved to Facebook Comments. Lots of blogs and special interest websites now use Disqus to get into that cross-web "discoverability" of their sites by being on the same comment platform as CNN, The Atlantic, etc. Some sites still use Intense Debate, though it's dropped off bigtime. Wonkette probably the biggest political commentary site still using it, some blogs, some small news sites. (Intense Debate had the "early mover disadvantage" - LiveFyre and Disqus are just much better.)
Even for the Facebook Comments-powered sites, you don't have to unblock Facebook globally, if you use the right tool.
Problem: You don't want to be tracked by Facebook all over creation, but you do want to be able to comment on the majority of sites. Including, if they use Facebook comments, those sites.
Solution: Use Ghostery (and I'm specifically recommending Ghostery, not alternatives like Disconnect; I explain why further in) with its fine granularity of global and site-specific blocking.
1. Turn off GhostRank, so you're not telling Evidon (Ghostery) who you're going to. It's off by default so they're being good guys.
2. Turn on auto-update and auto-block new elements.
3. Block everything. (It's just easier to start from blocking everything. 3 after 2 because sometimes first-use leaves stuff unblocked)
4. If you're a regular commenter and comment reader at major sites, unblock the "3pes" (Third Party Tracking Elements) for:
Disqus
LiveFyre
Intense Debate
If using the Firefox version of Ghostery, there's a Cookie tab. Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the Cookie tab.
Disqus and Intense Debate have cookies on their list, too, LiveFyre currently does not.)
5. Save (one save covers all the tab settings you've jumped between.)
Do not unblock Facebook or anything with Facebook in it here at the global level. You don't want Facebook knowing every site you've been at that has a Like or Follow button or a Facebook Social Reader app, just the ones you intend to actually read Facebook-powered comments at.
The last several versions of Ghostery for Firefox, and the most recent version for Chrome finally, have per-site per-tracker disabling. So go to the site where you can't see the comments. Click the Ghostery toolbar icon to see the list of trackers blocked. Don't whitelist the whole site. Next to each active tracker, Ghostery has a slide switch. You can unblock Facebook Connect or Facebook Social Graph or whatever you need, just for that site, then reload.
It may well turn iterative. For Facebook comments it certainly will. On USA Today, for example, if you click the little dialog bubble icon on the left panel from the story (which is their comment icon), Ghostery will increment by at least one more tracker, USAtoday didn't load the FB stuff till then. Unblock that and reload, you still won't get the comments. By unblocking Facebook Connect, now it could load Facebook Social Plugins. Now unblock that. Rinse and repeat.
I'm a pretty avid Disqus commenter and have it on all my and my clients' sites, so I leave it unblocked globally. But you could do the same with that, if you only want it to work at certain sites and don't want it knowing you're there at other Disqus-powered sites.
One thing I've found on a lot of sites - even with Disqus (or LiveFyre) unblocked, the site's JavaScript that in turn triggers the Disqus or LiveFyre plugin, won't fire unless you unblock something else. And sometimes that "something else" isn't particularly "safe" for folks who don't want any adverts or cross-web trackers. Omniture from Adobe's advertisin
... has been inferring a potential customer/candidate's value. Forever. How can one particular "inventor" possibly claim that it's novel and unobvious?
It hurts the people who are miscategorized, and therefore get inferior offers for goods and services that they might actually want to buy.
It hurts the people who are miscategorized, and therefore get inferior offers for goods and services that they might actually want to buy.
If they are visiting Paris Hilton / Justin Bieber sites, then I see no downside here.
Good idea, considering that I will not see them.