

Facebook To Let Advertisers Bid on Your Browser Data - akandiah
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-about-to-launch-facebook-exchange-realtime-ad-bidding-20120613,0,2535363.story

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spodek
We all know Facebook is creepy, getting creepier, and shows no sign of slowing
down. They are in an arms race to mine your data (you are their product) for
their customers.

That's why people are leaving.

I posted about how the experience of leaving is effortless and generally
improved my life -- "Leaving Facebook is easy and fun".

<http://joshuaspodek.com/leaving-facebook-easy-and-fun>

~~~
ictoan
"Real-time bidding technology is already used by Google, Yahoo, AOL and other
companies to target ads to consumers as they surf the Web."

You should probably leave the internet in general.

~~~
tatsuke95
I think everyone here understands that these are all layers of data-mining,
and all the big players are doing it.

But it's the subtlety. Google (at least Google of old, who knows in the
future) sort of offers you help as you're looking for things, just like in the
example below about hotels in Istanbul. The average person probably doesn't
understand what's going on under the hood there. People don't really know what
Google knows about them. Facebook, on the other hand, is openly saying "We
have all of this private information on you, and we're going to sell it to the
highest bidder." It's the same, but different. One is PR friendly, the other
is a PR nightmare.

This can't be a long term strategy for Facebook. _People don't want to know
that their information is being sold_. They will tire of this.

~~~
alttab
I key this back to all of the social akwardness of the Facebook CEO. Honestly,
that guy is a little weird. Even weirder that a billion people have trusted a
socially awkard guy with their full browsing histories and every aspect of
their social life.

This latest move just proves to me that Zuckerberg really is there to take
advantage of you and spy on you. At first with the open graph and the like
buttons and all of that people were speculating that Facebook could easily
follow and gather internet crumbs and store them for later. And now here is a
press release openly saying they are going to be selling this data for profit.
There is ZERO tact in this.

It will take a while, but I'm starting to get the feeling that Facebook will
destroy itself in its never ending quest to justify its hype.

~~~
jaems33
"I key this back to all of the social akwardness of the Facebook CEO."

This truly doesn't really matter. It's not as if extroverted socially amiable
people always make the best decisions.

~~~
alttab
I'd like to believe that socially well adjusted people understand that digging
into browsing history outside of Facebook for profit is creepy.

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mootothemax
To play devil's advocate, is this any different to what Google is doing at
present? Spend a few hours researching, say, hotels in Istanbul, and you'll
see the ads that appear on Adwords-enabled sites change accordingly.

~~~
damian2000
Yeah I think its the same idea - the article mentions Google, AOL and Yahoo
are doing it already. It happens to me on my own blog, which has a google
adsense banner (but if I click on it then I'm violating google's terms of
service).

~~~
horsehead
I would say the difference is that, regardless of how it is used or presented,
this ultimately links the information to a _specific person_ , not just some
generalized IP address.

~~~
planetguy
For those of us with gmail addresses it's pretty strongly linked to our
identity too.

Anyone with access to my google history including my email could tell much
more about me than my facebook data; for starters they could easily find out
my home address.

The real issue is that I just trust google more than I trust facebook.
Facebook has had a lot of privacy issues in the past, while Google seems to
have avoided them. Google is run by adults, facebook is run by children.

~~~
horsehead
yeah. The thing about google though is that you can just sign out of your
google accounts and they dont track you, I believe. Facebook -- nope. We're
with you all the time !!!

------
jonknee
And the pressure to hit quarterly targets begins. I have stopped using
Facebook frequently since the IPO and now only login in Incognito Mode so that
the cookies are sandboxed.

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arebop
"Facebook isn’t giving any advertisers information about users" So there's no
evidence for the inflammatory headline here.

~~~
sp332
Of course they do. I mean, they don't package it up and send it in a
spreadsheet. But when a company makes an ad, they can target it to users who
meet certain criteria. So whenever a user clicks an ad, the advertiser knows
they fit that criteria. They can know your gender, age, what city you live
near, how much money you make, etc.

~~~
ivankirigin
But you needed to click on the ad

~~~
mike-cardwell
Will there be a comment under the Ad saying:

"By clicking this advert you will be informing company x that you recently
visited the URL y"

No? Then they're collecting and selling that information on without your
knowledge and without your permission.

Will there also be a notice and button under the advert so you can permanently
and fully delete your browser history and tell Facebook to not collect it in
future? No?

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smoyer
This obviously wouldn't work for smaller sites but ...

What if Facebook was transparent about how much they earned on advertising per
user. Would you pay to use their service without the ads (and associated
tracking cookies)?

Hmmm ... as I reread that, it kind of sounds like "protection". But I guess
there are a lot of companies that won't make money without shaking down their
customers in some way or another.

------
drcube
Advertisers should bid to _me_. If I accept, Facebook gets a substantial cut.

I feel like the privacy issues and misaligned incentives would be corrected if
only Facebook saw themselves as a broker between advertisers and consumers
rather than Lord of the Data.

------
gouranga
It's stuff like that which makes me happy that I have never owned a Facebook
account.

------
planetguy
I wish somebody would develop a browser which would let me use facebook but
automatically hide data from it.

Now, let me think... who in the world is a major browser manufacturer who
would have an incentive to prevent facebook from being able to serve well-
matched advertisements?

~~~
Hovertruck
Incognito mode?

~~~
planetguy
Yes, I just want a streamlined incognito mode that (a) automatically activates
when I look at facebook and (b) remembers my login credentials.

Actually you wouldn't need it to be specifically targeted at facebook, you
could target it at any domain you like.

~~~
jonknee
There are extensions that do the first part:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gedeaafllmnkkgbinf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gedeaafllmnkkgbinfnleblcglamgebg?hl=en-
US&hc=search&hcp=main)

Remembering credentials can be done with something like 1Password.

------
Toshio
Does anyone have a link for that Firefox add-on that protects your privacy?

~~~
sonicaa
On Firefox, Options > Privacy, check "Tell websites that I do not want to be
tracked". Not sure if all websites respect this setting.

~~~
kennu
It would be pretty optimistic to assume that Facebook wouldn't store your
historical data, if you're deliberately logged in with your account but
sending DNT: 1. Facebook's whole user experience pretty much relies on the
historical data it collects of the logged in users' actions.

(I mean this from the point of view that you are a Facebook user who doesn't
want to receive profiled advertising as described in the article.)

------
JohannL
> “It will certainly open up Facebook inventory to companies that want to
> reach people in this manner,” she said.

I like how she refers to Facebook users as inventory and people at the same
time.

Also, I feel like some Bill Hicks ^^

~~~
steffan
The 'inventory' they refer to is _ad_ inventory.

~~~
JohannL
Okay, then I don't like how she refers to people as inventory, but how the
sentence would parse that way also; seeing how it's close to an interesting
truth, instead of some blurb only advertisers would care about. HN doesn't
stand for Ho News, does it. So there.

------
voodoochilo
you are not the user, you are the product. but it's for free;)

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jpwagner
facebook should give a cut of the revenue to each user whose data was used.

~~~
coopdog
why?

~~~
jpwagner
wouldnt this flip the issue. rather than users complaining about their data
being used, they'd be involved in a marketplace to make their browsing data
more valuable.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Sounds like such a setup could be easily gamed to me.

~~~
jpwagner
how is this not good? it's exactly how "seo" became an everyday term...

~~~
mike-cardwell
Google Adsense is much worse than it could be for advertisers because of
people gaming it. Why should Facebook add an element of gaming to their own
system which in turn makes it much worse for advertisers?

Also, it would cost a _fortune_ to build and maintain a system for sending
payments out to millions of users.

Also, they could just keep the money to themselves instead of giving it away.

~~~
jpwagner
the whole point is that if they keep the money then the users won't game the
system, they'll complain that fb is selling their data...

~~~
ceejayoz
Users complain when Facebook changes a font size, or a button color. They
complain no matter what, and Facebook has gotten quite good at just letting
them whine away for a week or two until they give up and shut up.

------
antonioevans
I think people in hacker community are always way too afraid of where privacy
is going. We should all understand, it's gone already. Facebook's remarketing
is same as Google + Bing. Notice all those Tigerdirect ads. Personally I like
ads on sites. They tend to be related content and helps site owners monetize.
I think the conversation shouldn't be best way to stop cookie tracking but how
to control what you want out there in a single place. It's really crappy to
have to worry about privacy settings on hundreds of websites. I don't want to
use the web on privacy mode.

~~~
DrMcFacekick
I don't understand why people are worried. Every time you use a loyalty card
in a supermarket your data is tracked, analyzed, and you're served up
personalized ads in the form of the coupons that print out when you ring up.
Every time you send an email in gmail, it's searched for keywords and targeted
ads are served up to you. Every time you use your Macy's card your purchases
are tracked and you get personalized coupons in your inbox.

I have never heard an argument against Facebook/Google/whatever that was any
deeper than "But but but MAH PRIVACY!" Privacy was kaput when the first phone
book was printed.

