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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.
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!
The patent specifically suggests using inferred income for targeting mortgage offers, which the Wikipedia article notes has been a ripe area for abuse: "Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable majority consumer whose business is more sought after"
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.
The patent specifically suggests using inferred income for targeting mortgage offers, which the Wikipedia article notes has been a ripe area for abuse: "Reverse redlining occurs when a lender or insurer targets minority consumers, not to deny them loans or insurance, but rather to charge them more than could be charged to a comparable majority consumer whose business is more sought after"
That is even more of a stretch. The Facebook scheme is nothing more than presenting advertising to people based on viewing habits, not some scheme to deny people the opportunity to risk future treasure on real property.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
"Post-capitalist"? We're reaching the zenith of everything Capitalism has sought to achieve. Record income disparities with unparalleled wealth for the super-wealthy, concentrating control over every aspect of society in the hands of a tiny elite. Thanks to Facebook, "the markets" (a.k.a. billionaire investors) even control human social interactions once considered sacrosanct from corporate intrusion. The Capitalist economy is all about the ascendancy of the 1% (and the 0.01% within that).
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/
Don't worry, your friends and family will help upload all your personal information to Facebook to sell to advertisers, to make sure you don't miss out on anything.
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.
Viewing habits here, Facebook explains, are just a proxy for income bracket,, which will be used to categorize and target users. And, as this article on Digital Inclusion and data profiling notes, "Digitally dependent surveillant technologies do work differently in how they collect, categorize, target, and overall exploit users. As these technologies emerge as central to the current economy, old forms of prejudice and injustice can be grafted onto these new tools." Doesn't have to be that way, sure, but sometimes people have a hard time restraining themselves when big money is involved. :-)
Pretty, pretty low.
This is patently absurd. In the UK, Equifax, Experian and Call Credit already sell income predictions based on statistical modelling of credit bureau information. How is switching the underlying data set in any way a unique or clever thing to do?
This is nothing more than a fancy regression algorithm.
A mid-level corporate manager at McDonalds probably makes more money than some lab technician.
By that logic, you could look at the IP they are connecting to Facebook from.... if they have been connecting from Google's IP address space, then you might infer they are an office worker who gets the privilege of surfing the internet at work -- which puts them in a higher bracket than someone who connects from a dial-up only ISP or AOL.
One thing I am absolutely not arguing is the ridiculous notion that anything like this should be eligible for a patent at all.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
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.
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.
Unfortunately, even though gradstudent wages are miserably low, the sad truth is that McDonald's near-minimum-wage is even more terrible. And, unlike gradstudents, the majority of people working McDonalds jobs are adults, often raising families, near the top of their career advancement --- they're not about to see double or triple salary after a few more years of burger flipping. US gradstudents have it tough, but the US working poor have it even harder (levels of poverty difficult to understand for anyone living in the civilized world).
Another confirmation that our idea of the internet has devolved in the hands of entrepeneurs.
I'm with you. Some people seem to have had it drilled into their heads that they've got some moral duty to download and expose themselves to corporate propaganda ((i.e., advertizements) and the malware* that frequently accompanies it), lest the Internet shrivel up and die. They forget that aside from spam, the Internet started out nearly ad-free, and that ads were scarce for a while in the beginning of the 1990s web-boom.
I don't think it'd necessarily be a bad thing if ad-dependent content disappeared; what would remain would be material that's important enough that someone's willing to ask for donations, pay out of their own pocket — or both — in order to make it freely available. Wikipedia (for instance) seems to work fine using this model, and is better for it, I think, than if it kowtowed to corporate-huckster "benefactors."
* I consider the ads themselves a form of malware — mental malware meant to manipulate peoples' purchase decisions (as manipulation is the intent behind propaganda of any type).
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan