Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Will No Longer Allow Third-Party Data For Targeting Ads (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In a surprise change, Facebook will give up one major data source that the company uses to help advertisers target relevant users on the platform. The company just announced that it will end a feature called Partner Categories, launched back in 2013 out of a partnership between Facebook and major data brokers. Third party data helps Facebook further atomize its user base into meaningful segments for advertisers.
Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that the change is permanent, not a temporary precaution. In order to leverage the deep pool of data Facebook collects on users, the company mixes information that it obtains from users themselves (Pages a user liked, for instance) with information from advertisers (membership status in a loyalty program, for example) and with data obtained from third party providers. While Facebook feels comfortable with the integrity of its data sourcing within the first two categories, it feels less settled about dipping into these aggregate pools of third party data. The decision was issued in light of the company's recent privacy concerns over third-party data mishandling.
Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that the change is permanent, not a temporary precaution. In order to leverage the deep pool of data Facebook collects on users, the company mixes information that it obtains from users themselves (Pages a user liked, for instance) with information from advertisers (membership status in a loyalty program, for example) and with data obtained from third party providers. While Facebook feels comfortable with the integrity of its data sourcing within the first two categories, it feels less settled about dipping into these aggregate pools of third party data. The decision was issued in light of the company's recent privacy concerns over third-party data mishandling.
Too little, too late. Get your ass over to Capitol Hill Zuck, and try to stuff the sausage back into the casing. This goose is fully cooked. People are wising up to FB shenanigans and its days are numbered. I wouldn't buy stock in this company at half its current level, it's going to be a media circus.
They've got the "experts" coming on the morning news shows now reassuring people that Facebook has done nothing illegal, and we all agreed to be snooped on permanently when we signed up, so we all need to calm down.
The truth of the matter is, the government wants something done about this because they're pissed off that all that wonderful data they've been able to slurp up and use to fuck with people's lives is available to other people too. And you know damn good and well nobody involved in the government wants that data collection to stop. What they really want is to lock it down as a direct pipeline for themselves and they're financiers.
The funny thing is, the uproar may cause some people to actually wise up and stop trading their lives away to these media giants, making it harder to track every waking (and some sleeping) moments of people's lives. Ya dun fucked up by letting this shit get public and allowing the plebes to hear some small smattering of the truth.
Now, if we could get some actual technical people on the news shows the half aware general citizens watch telling the ACTUAL truth that these big media companies are a giant info siphon, that could bring the whole thing to a much more manageable state. Though there's still rumblings from a few folks that the security trade-off is worth it for the convenience. I have yet to understand what's convenient about Facebook. For the month or so I used it to follow a couple bands it essentially annoyed me with "related" bullshit I had zero interest in and I eventually shut it down for good.
I just don't understand how people didn't know this was the end result until it beat them over the head.