
With New Ad Platform, Facebook Opens Gates to Its Vault of User Data - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/29/business/with-new-ad-platform-facebook-opens-the-gates-to-its-vault-of-consumer-data.html
======
Taek
I think the thing that frustrates me the most about all of this is not the
privacy, but the fact that Facebook gets exclusive access to data that I think
is rightfully public knowledge. I'm fine with advertisers knowing that I
really enjoy hiking, what my salary is, etc., but I don't like that they have
to go through Facebook to get that knowledge. Ideally, they would go through
me, or even better some publicly available repository of data that I've
allowed to be assembled.

But there is also data that I may not want to be public knowledge. If Facebook
scans my chat logs, then Facebook knows a lot about me that I would not want
some of my friends and family knowing. And I wouldn't be surprised if their
TOS permits them to scan my chat logs.

And you can also do interesting oracle attacks with this. Let's say I'm trying
to figure out if my son is homosexual. (Substitute for any fact Facebook may
know, and for any person you want to investigate). I already know a ton of
things about my son. Age, where he lives, what sports he plays, his favorite
foods, etc. So I create one really specific ad that's guaranteed to include
only my son and maybe a few other people. This one is only shown to
homosexuals. Then I create an alternate ad that targets the same group, but
only heterosexuals. Then I just need to watch which ad appears on my sons
computer, and I suddenly know what Facebook thinks his sexual orientation is.

~~~
teddyh
> _If Facebook scans my chat logs,_ […] _their TOS permits them to scan my
> chat logs._

Your language betrays your cognitive dissonance. It it not _your_ chat log. It
was _never_ your chat log. You typed characters into Facebook’s chat log, and
the chat log is _Facebook’s_. There is no “permitting” needed. When you use
Facebook (or Google, or whatever), you live in a glass house, an aquarium,
with overseers who do not consider you a person with integrity, but more as a
kind of pet to be inspected and analyzed at will. Facebook distracts you with
“privacy settings”, but those apply to other pets in the aquarium, not its
overseers. It might be discomforting to think of yourself as a pet in an
aquarium, but you have chosen this yourself, by using Facebook.

The question if Facebook is permitted to scan your chat logs is therefore
_meaningless_ ; there is no such concept. Facebook “scans” _all its chat logs,
all the time_. (That’s why they _have_ their chat logs.) The “privacy
settings” have nothing to do with actual privacy from Facebook — like Monopoly
money, it has no validity outside the tiny world of its own. Like “deleting”
things, it appears to you to delete things, but does not _actually_ delete
them as far as Facebook is concerned — it is all logged and saved, forever. I
could go on, but I’d better not.

(The same goes for Google and all the other cloud and social services.)

~~~
rayiner
Absolutely right. If you SSH-ed into my personal computer and started typing
into a file, everyone would laugh if you claimed that what was in the file was
your data. You're not doing anything different when you type into Facebook. If
it quacks like a duck its a duck. Its data that sits on their systems, that
you have no legal or contractual protection over. Its not your data, its their
data. You're just the one generating it.

Folks desperately want to deny the physical nature of cloud services, and
pretend that its the same as storing something on your hard drive at home.
They want to believe that the software abstraction that shows local and cloud
documents together is real. But you can't will away reality.

~~~
lambda
No, it is not "their data."

When I rent a safe deposit box from a bank, and store my valuables in it, my
valuables do not become the property of the bank.

Likewise, just because I store some data on someone else's computer system
does not make that data theirs.

Now, we may not yet have a good enough legal framework for protecting our
data; in Europe, laws about this are better, while in the US you are expected
to just use contract law for this purpose, and of course with online services
you have no way of negotiating the contract and they always claim the right to
do anything they want with the data.

But that does not make it "their data"; it just means that our laws need to be
updated to better protect our data and not allow companies to simply claim
they can do anything they want in non-negotiable user agreements.

~~~
rayiner
There is a difference between _is_ and _should be_. Your valuables stored in a
safe deposit box are still yours because its illegal for banks to look inside
a safe deposit box outside an emergency. But no such laws exist for cloud
data, and more importantly, every interaction you have with a cloud provider
happens against the background understanding that the cloud provider has zero
obligation to you regarding any data you put on their systems.

You can argue that things _should be_ different. What I am talking about is
how things _are._

------
atmosx
I created a _secondary account_ only to handle our pharmacy's facebook page to
promote our brick and stones shop. There's no eshop yet, so I tried to run ads
(spend about 30 EUR so far), but the targeting is awfully off the mark. I
didn't spam any of my friends, tried just to use ads. Results are lousy. I
targeted a specific Greek city, surrounding areas and specific ages and all I
get are 'likes' from people in other cities, which have zero value to me at
the moment. So in a sense I'm just waisting money.

I don't know if this new system will be available for small shops, but the
current system for narrow areas (> 50k inhabitants) doesn't seem to work
properly.

~~~
mrweasel
Facebook ads generally seems... weird. Even the ads on Facebook itself is very
often plain wrong.

That's not to say that Facebooks ads won't work in some or most cases, but
there are definitivly case where they are surprisingly wrong. For me
personally I don't recall ever seeing an ad on Facebook where I felt that they
where targeting me directly.

It might be that the only interesting piece of info about me is that I'm male
and above a certain age. I would just think that given what Facebook knows
about me they would be able to target my much much better.

Currently the company that does product targeting the best seems to be Amazon,
but only in the books department.

~~~
XorNot
Its because Facebook can't afford to not show you an ad. So, when no one
specific is paying them, you get lowest-common-denominatored.

It would be interesting to collect ad statistics from a broad range of
Facebook accounts to see what they do get shown, since it would speak volumes
about who's actually paying them.

~~~
igravious
That would be an interesting way to turn the tables. We are on their platform
so the user data is theirs but we are also on their platform so the ad data is
ours. Of course, this would need an app (or plugin or whatever they are called
in Facebook-land) and a critical mass of people to install it.

~~~
luckyno13
I believe I would reactivate my account just to partake in this. Turning the
tables sounds fun. Mine the data of the data miners.

I am almost certain that FB would put a stop to it though, as hypocritical as
it may be.

------
arn
People have always asked for a solid Google Adsense competitor. Maybe this
will be it. Though looks like it's not wide open yet, publishers have to
apply/ be certified:
[http://atlassolutions.com/partners/](http://atlassolutions.com/partners/)

But you could imagine this being pretty massive.

~~~
sharkweek
I will certainly test it out on all my sites - honestly I wonder what took so
long, adsense has been ripe for competition for too long now

~~~
adventured
Facebook is the only platform that has the scale necessary in the english
speaking world to attempt a full-blown competitor to AdSense. I'd suspect that
Facebook's relatively slow crawl toward full monetization is part of the
reason they didn't do it sooner. They're just now getting the ad machine up to
speed.

I'm also curious to see what kind of results Amazon's new ad network efforts
yield. Narrower scope in some regards, but they obviously have incredibly
valuable data.

------
7Figures2Commas
For anybody asking the question, "Why Atlas?", please see
[http://atlassolutions.com/why-
atlas/introduction/](http://atlassolutions.com/why-atlas/introduction/):

> New possibilities for a new advertising reality. Atlas drives advertising
> impact for today’s multifaceted brand journeys.

A lot has been written about Facebook's epic engineering staff, but the
copywriting talent the company employs is clearly second to none too.

~~~
ghuntley
Two slight typos on the signup call to action however:

    
    
        Atlas, a next generation ad serving and measurment platform, 
        lets advertisers, agencies, publishers and partners increase
        results through the poiewr of real world data. Find out how it
        can work for you.

~~~
rschroed
fixed, thanks

------
ThomPete
I still think the primary problem is that Facebook does not understand intent
and so it will still be a 2nd class citizen compared to Google.

~~~
melvinmt
They're getting pretty good though at predicting intent.

A couple months ago, I was looking for a cheap hotel in San Diego on several
travel websites outside of Facebook. I didn't click any FB like buttons on
those websites but not much later "Hotels in San Diego" ads started appearing
in my feed.

~~~
falsestprophet
Ad networks have cookies on the travel sites you visited

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_retargeting)

------
spullara
If you thought that retargeting was bad because you saw the same
advertisements for the same things no matter where you were, you haven't seen
anything yet.

------
samingrassia
Apples to apples, this is less of an answer to adwords and more along the
lines of an adsense competitor. IMHO This launch will take a huge bite out of
quantcast + any cookie pooling/dmp companies. It will also be interesting to
see how adroll and other retargeting companies end up fairing.

Budget-wise, I think this will expand the pie for over all ad spend rather
than suck out any air from googles ad platforms.

Chris Dixon basically describes this game plan 4 years ago,
[http://cdixon.org/2010/05/15/facebook-is-about-to-try-to-
dom...](http://cdixon.org/2010/05/15/facebook-is-about-to-try-to-dominate-
display-ads-the-way-google-dominates-text-ads/)

~~~
perlpimp
what is interesting I think, it that facebook more or less might make all
private data peddlers irrelevant. I could be bad or it could be better in a
sense that your data will be in one place instead of a thousand different
unknown places. it would be easier to target by eff such well branded target..
IMHO.

------
deanclatworthy
The key questions I have are:

\- Will this respect DoNotTrack? \- Will Facebook users be able to opt-out of
this targetting? \- Will it respect my privacy settings when I set all my
"personal" data to "Only me" or "Friends only"?

I find it quite abhorrent that a service, so personal, is now truly using that
data against me whilst I'm _outside_ of the service. I will be among the first
to leave if the answer to all these questions is no.

~~~
wodenokoto
The people selling ad space as well as the people buying ads won't have access
to your personal data, so yes, they will be able to utilize your "only me"
personal data. You ask FB to target certain profiles and FB handles the rest.
This is considered keeping your private data private (and rightly so IMHO, but
I know some people who disagree)

I don't know if the "like" buttons around the web respects the DoNotTrack, but
I expect no changes in Facebook's tracking behaviour.

------
chuckcode
It will be interesting to see how advertisers take advantage of this data
without alienating people. A lot of people don't mind seeing a targeted ad on
Facebook since they have a relationship with them but would be disturbed to
see a very target ad in another app. Target saw this when trying to deploy
their targeting to pregnant women, they had to camouflage their pregnancy
product coupons with other random ones as "some women react badly" [1].

Also article claims that Facebook isn't selling your data but aren't they
really if advertisers are going to get to set a cookie for usual advertising
accounting of reach and view caps? E.g. Buy campaign targeting users with
qualities X,Y & Z and then set a cooking on users who saw the ads so now I
know they are all X,Y & Z.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-
habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html)

~~~
wodenokoto
I'd expect it to go one of two ways:

Either you just happen to see a lot of ads all over the web for bars and day
trips in Thailand after you did a Facebook check-in at the airport saying
you're on your way to Thailand

Or

The ads will be similar to what you see on FB, eg your friend Jonathan likes
the new diet coke, why don't you try some, john? With the ad clearly outlined
as not being part of the site with a "ad delivered by Facebook" disclaimer and
clear FB styling.

------
cletus
Advertising is a tricky business.

Facebook's Like button was really a brilliant move by Zuckerberg because it
essentially gave FB a tracking page of the majority of the Internet. I don't
mean this in a nefarious way: this is how display advertising works. A cookie
allows the advertiser to see what sites you visit and, from your behaviour,
develop a profile of your interests, likely age/gender, etc (all based on
modelling).

I should also point out that before the inevitable cries about privacy, an
advertiser doesn't care about you, specifically. They care about the
characteristics of groups of people because that's the only way statistical
modelling works anyway. If you visit some fishing sites, you as an individual
may or may not be interested in fishing. Take 1000 people like you and there's
a much higher chance that a member of that group is much more interested in
fishing than the general population.

Anyway, I thought a couple of years ago that FB was poised to become a major
player in the display advertising business. This hasn't come to pass. Not
because they couldn't. They simply have chosen not to go down that path. They
don't' want to risk cheapening their platform by becoming another AdSense
(which is the lowest CPM you can get and is really for the very long tail).

This is one reason advertising is tricky. It's a balancing act where you're
trying to cultivate premium publishers and advertisers while segmenting both
(premium, remnant, long tail, etc) without cheapening the premium side, which
is where you make all your money.

So you can buy an impression on the WSJ through a guaranteed reservation. This
by far generates the most money for the site and is how the WSJ would like you
to buy advertising. Still, they can't sell all their impressions this way so
there are various sources for monetizing so-called "remnant inventory". Thing
is, you don't want your premium advertisers buying impressions through those
(cheaper) channels instead.

So Facebook seems to clearly be protecting its potential value. It really is
potential value until it's realized.

I have a theory about this: I don't think all that data we give Facebook is
actually all that valuable. What sites you visit on the Internet vs what you
tell Facebook is really the difference between what you do and what you say.
What you say is filtered through how you perveive yourself, how you think
others perceive you and how you want them to perceive you. What you do (IMHO)
is a far more genuine representation.

So time will tell. I think at this point if you see FB enter the display
advertising space, it's a de facto admission of failure (meaning it hasn't met
expectations) of monetizing all that data.

Disclaimer: I work on display advertising for Google.

~~~
steveax
> an advertiser doesn't care about you, specifically

Of course they do. They just haven't figured out how to personally market to
individuals without running afoul of regulations or public sentiment. Removing
those impediments is a marketing wet dream.

~~~
fenomas
Why would that be the case? If somebody wants to sell me fishing poles, the
only data that's valuable to them is data that predicts how likely I am to buy
fishing poles. And I don't think there's _any_ data an advertiser could
capture that would do a better job of that than what Google and Facebook
already have on offer.

~~~
Surio
I think what OP's referring to is forms of "targeted up-sell", where they
could choose what kind of fishing poles to sell to you. Here, the deal might
be a favourable one, but not for you (but for the sellers of course).

There was that (in)famous NYTimes article from a few years ago about how the
target supermarket was successful in finding out a teenager's pregnancy before
the girl's father did, and sent her coupons for baby items (which is how the
father first got wind of the likelihood of his daughter's pregnancy).

So, as the OP says, it gets murky and grey very quickly as you get into
"personalised" selling.

We "live in interesting times" indeed.

~~~
fenomas
Sure, but I guess we're talking at cross-purposes. Target didn't (I presume)
send _that girl_ the coupons, after all, but everybody who matched certain
segmentation provided by the ad platform . That's what I take the earlier
poster to mean about advertisers not caring about "you specifically".
Segmentation is valuable, certainly, but not individualization.

~~~
Surio
I was trying to give you quick summaried, multiple points of targeted
advertising in my reply. Others who replied have taken the fishing example and
pointed out how detailed targeting _could_ go for that specific case.

And the particular case that you are now picking on could be argued as a
corner case that captures both segmentation and individualisation at same
time.

Anyway, the point has been made about why individualisation could be _a tricky
curve_ by me and the others. Choose whichever example(s) gives you the best
rationale.

------
unclebucknasty
The article re-articulates the requisite disclaimer that Facebook does not
sell or reveal "personally identifiable" information about you.

This is misleading on both abstract and practical levels.

Practically, if a company runs an ad that targets certain data points, then
converts a customer based on that ad, then the company now knows that those
data points apply to that customer.

Abstractly, at what point do we define ourselves as "personally identifiable"
these days, and when does it stop mattering? That is, we spend a great deal of
time online generating data-based profiles that become very real identities in
their own right. If these identities are of a world where we spend so much
time and are effectively being bought and sold, then does it matter that our
street address or first name isn't included?

Anyone who has ever felt creeped out or "big-brothered" by retargeting is
experiencing exactly this breach of his/her alter online identity.

------
mark_l_watson
Question: I usually use one web browser for social media and gmail, and
another web browser for everything else. Does this positively effect privacy?

It certainly effects the utility to advertising frameworks for tracking
cookies but I would think that IP address tracking might be enough to track
users.

~~~
w1ntermute
Related: I use Incognito Mode in Chrome for browsing any sites that I'm not
logged into. Also, I run Ghostery. Do either of these things actually work?

~~~
sjg007
Well it will prevent persistent cookies across sessions, but you can also be
tracked by ip address.

------
danvoell
Anyone else think it is a bad move that they have a separate site? Atlas by
Facebook - [http://atlassolutions.com/](http://atlassolutions.com/). I
understand that they want to sell ads to companies but they aren't fooling
anyone (nor are they trying to) and they might end up confusing more people
than they help.

~~~
brandnewlow
Atlas is an established brand in the big agency/brand space. For now that's
what this product is focused on.

------
jrochkind1
> The Facebook login is most useful on mobile devices, where traditional web
> tracking tools like cookies and pixel tags do not work. If a person is
> logged into the Facebook app on a smartphone, the company has the ability to
> see what other apps he or she is using and could show ads within those apps.

------
prr
Anyone know if Whatsapp will be using Atlas, either overtly (displaying ads),
or covertly (harvesting data in the background)?

------
jhuckestein
Does anyone know if the new system supports the custom audience feature
(targeting specific phone numbers or email addresses)?

------
lingben
facebook ads are junk and have been proven to be so

before you waste any money, watch these two videos:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g)

~~~
dangrossman
If you're not buying likes, then the quality of likes doesn't matter. Many
(most?) of the ads on the sidebar aren't for page likes, they're links to
businesses/products, like most other ads on the net. ROI is easily measured
there -- more revenue generated via sales/signups than the cost of the ad or
you cancel it. Facebook ads are profitable for many businesses. They are for
mine.

~~~
shostack
I agreed with you up to the "ROI is easily measured there" part Dan.

I've never used Improvely so I'm not sure how deep down the cross-channel
attribution rabbit hole you get with it, but social, and display in general,
are far from being solved problems with regards to measuring ROI.

There are of course a few cases where ROI is indeed easily measured. Someone
sees a FB ad, clicks it, and converts without any other touch-points in their
path to conversion. I think we can all agree FB would get 100% attribution
credit in this instance.

But the second you throw in any sort of existing brand awareness generated by
other channels, or FB's contribution to said awareness for driving conversions
in more last-touch inclined channels, it becomes very murky indeed.

There's a reason all of the 3rd party dynamic attribution vendors like
VisualIQ, Convertro and Adometry have been bought up by the big players.

Would love to know your thoughts on solving for this problem though as it is
increasingly a large one as the targeting side of the display world continues
to eclipse progress of actually measuring the performance of said display
efforts at a staggering rate.

~~~
blumkvist
Well, you said it yourself. Track everything you possibly can, then get an SQL
server and start modeling. Nowadays, you can do basically everything you need
in excel. I wouldn't say it's easy by no means, but if you are dedicated you
can make it work. Just get a book about MMM and start tinkering with the data.

