Slashdot Mirror
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?"
It doesn't really matter if the algorithm is wrong for an individual, as long as it it generally correct for the population.
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Excellent; that puts you into a group of 0.001%. As a highly technically literate user you will have monthly household income of between 10,000 and 11,500 (95% chance) and are less likely to want pop star accessories. However, there is a 30% increase in the chance of you purchasing electronic gadgets. The correlation of your IP address with a slashdot reader decreases your chance of wanting to buy wedding accessories by over 99.72%.
Stay anon; please.
"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).