Cheryl J
techmanFacebook is selling your private details - including your sexuality!
February 2nd 2009 05:38
FACEBOOK is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150 million members by creating one of the world's largest market research databases.
In an attempt to finally cash in on the social networking site, once valued at $US15 billion ($23.6 billion), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products.
Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married and even whether they are gay or straight.
The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Randi Zuckerberg, the global markets director of Facebook and sister of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, said multinational companies had been bowled over by the ability to receive real-time feedback from the site's millions of users.
"I had tons of people saying 'this could be so incredible for our business'. It takes a very long time to do a focus group, and businesses often don't have the luxury of time. I think they liked the instant responses," she said.
At the conference Facebook asked a range of questions of its users before feeding the answers back to delegates within minutes. It targeted users in Palestine and then Israel with the same question about global peace, before debating the results.
Marketing experts have said the vast amount of personal information Facebook holds may be worth "untold millions" to market research companies.
Facebook has sold the new polling system, called engagement ads, to CareerBuilder, a recruitment company.
I wrote about Facebook's privacy flaws perviously HERE but that was about flaws in their security not outright selling of your information. Do yourself a favour and dump Facebook now, but beware, being deleted from their system is harder than you think.
Article from Telegraph, London
In an attempt to finally cash in on the social networking site, once valued at $US15 billion ($23.6 billion), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products.
Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married and even whether they are gay or straight.
The company, which has struggled to make money from advertising, has been demonstrating the benefits of its new instant polling tool to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Randi Zuckerberg, the global markets director of Facebook and sister of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, said multinational companies had been bowled over by the ability to receive real-time feedback from the site's millions of users.
"I had tons of people saying 'this could be so incredible for our business'. It takes a very long time to do a focus group, and businesses often don't have the luxury of time. I think they liked the instant responses," she said.
At the conference Facebook asked a range of questions of its users before feeding the answers back to delegates within minutes. It targeted users in Palestine and then Israel with the same question about global peace, before debating the results.
Marketing experts have said the vast amount of personal information Facebook holds may be worth "untold millions" to market research companies.
Facebook has sold the new polling system, called engagement ads, to CareerBuilder, a recruitment company.
I wrote about Facebook's privacy flaws perviously HERE but that was about flaws in their security not outright selling of your information. Do yourself a favour and dump Facebook now, but beware, being deleted from their system is harder than you think.
Article from Telegraph, London
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It's better than those companies that sell phone listings to telemarketers
Is the issue really facebook exploiting us, or that people have become so complacent on the net? If you don't want personal stuff on the net- don't post personally stuff on the net.
I have to admit-- I always liked MySpace more hehe
BTW- if anyone whats to add me to their facebook look me up (I'm Morgan Bell's husband).
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What I don't get is this -
at the same time saying -
If the Facebook site is free, where do they make their money or what do they do to have themselves valued at $15 billion?
Comment by Dianna G
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This just makes it official.
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Hey Tracy, we're in complete agreement there.
Hi Chris, you have to wonder about a company that totally ignores its users. I hope they leave in droves.
Hello Teresa, when I tried to remove my profile I asked for it to be totally deleted. I still came up in searches with some of my details still appearing. After much to-ing and fro-ing with their support staff I discovered as someone had tagged me in a photo I could not be permanently deleted. I had to contact the people I knew who had tagged me to have them delete their photos and then reupload their pics without naming me. Finally I was permanently deleted. Appalling.
Hiya Johnny, I know you had hassles too, are you going back to Myspace?
Hi Damo, are you calling me a Nigel No-friends?
Hi Sara, I find it astonishing that some companies encourage the use of facebook for networking etc. Our company banned it because of the major security flaws as we deal with sensitive material and I agree with them totally. All it would take is someone using a dodgy application that infiltrates your system and you're a goner.
Hi lovely Morgan, I agree that you only put in what you want people to know but some people use it for just a small network of friends thinking that whatever they put up can only be seen by their friends not sold to marketing companies. I'm sure I remember reading the terms and conditions when I joined saying that if you did not use the applications your details would not be used for marketing purposes but they could not control what the third parties who ran the applications did with your data. Now they've just backflipped.
Hi Alt-ed, I completely agree with you that people have become far too complacent with what they put on the net. The troubling part are the young teenagers that put every tiny detail of their lives up. I don't know if it's naivety on their part regarding the risks they are opening themselves up to or just that they are part of the Paris Hilton "look at me" generation. I like Myspace too
Hey anonymous, thanks for your comment.
Hi Janet, my problem is that a lot of people have set their profiles to private but they will still have their details sold. It's one thing having your friends from overseas etc knowing what's going on in your life, it's another having those details "data mined".
As to the other issue I think it is just plain greed. Myspace keeps itself very well cashed up with advertising revenue and by diversifying into downloading music etc without the need to sell your details. My Myspace profile is public. I only have info on it that I'm happy to share but many have private profiles and I'm sure they would leave if their details were publicly shared.
Hi Dianna, that made me smile...and think of it as the Scientology of social networking sites
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I just read recently that a big problem with MySpace was that it is not very secure, whereas Facebook was much better in that regard. If anyon reading this has some knowledge about this, please share.
Teresa
Comment by Cheryl J
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Hi Teresa, Myspace has introduced applications but they are all driven by Myspace so there is no third party involvement. They do, however, have a problem with spammers who infiltrate the sytem through dodgy links. When you click on a link outside of Myspace, they tell you that it may be an unsafe source and you decide if you want to continue. I would never put anything like address, work details or anything too personal on Myspace though as it is a very open networking site whereas Facebook was hyped as a site that provided privacy.
Facebook's applications are made by third party sources so each time you add one to your page you risk your information as they have no control over how these people run the applications. The BBC purposely made a spy application to see how easily they could get your details and it was very quick. I wrote about their escapades in a previous post. The link is in the last paragraph of this post.
Facebook is secure if you do not use ANY applications but now of course they will be allowing marketing companies access. So the general public will still probably be prevented access to your info but you will be targetted by marketing groups depending on your displayed informationa and whether or not you fall into their target demographic.
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If your put details up anywhere on the internet, why on earth should you be surprised about anything. Hey, we're dealing with people here, and people are terrible.
Except for all of us, of course.
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And no, I don't have a problem with being targeted for research due to having put down 'women' and 'men' as my 'looking for' options. I love Facebook... dearly. It's brought me closer to some really great people.
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Hi Yves, I don't think they are in any danger of going under when they are worth $23 billion!
Hi Epiphanie, that gave me a chuckle
I think it should be an "opt in/opt out" kind of thing where if you don't mind you can say yes and if you do mind it remains private. It wouldn't be hard for them to do. at least that way people would have a choice. That's my biggest bugbear about it. They are taking away each individual's freedom of choice and obviously not listening to their users, as Chris said above, over a million people signed an online petition against it.
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I've never come across anybody as scary as SL on Facebook that's for sure!
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That's because she's on MySpace! - www.myspace.com/slbradish
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But I do need to agree that we do not have to post EVERYTHING on FB to tell the whole world about you, and as for tagging, think it is neat, just the way it's security flaw is trashing really annoying.
Thank goodness I don't use much FB unless communication for certain stuffs and groups.
PS: I have trouble signing up with MySpace... unfortunately, and I don't even use friendster anymore. But I do need to agree that FB is starting to spam users too many ads till the loading kills me.
Have a blessed day.
*runs off to reduce information in FB*
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The SL comment just made me laugh out loud
Alt-ed, you are a damn fine stalker.
Hi Jessica, that's cool that you found old friends. I don't think I'd want to catch up with many people from that time in my life. School was hideous!
What kind of trouble did you have signing up with Myspace? I found it all really easy. I have to admit I've never even seen Friendster so I have no idea on that one. Blessed be to you too.
Hi Journeywoman, it's easy to forget that it's accessible by others and to share a bit too much
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This is just another straw in the hat of Big Brother. Maybe Orwell was right?!
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