Facebook Outs Homosexual Customers, Indicates Report
Slight Paranoia reports that Facebook have be on the wrong side of the user privacy issue – again. A recent technical study entitled “Challenges in Measuring Online Advertising Systems” was published by a Microsoft researcher and two researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and if what it implies is true, all Facebook users should give a second thought to their Facebook data, even if it is marked private. What the research suggests is that there may be yet one more loophole, this time one where Facebook is outing gay users to marketing parties. Article resource – Report suggests Facebook is outing gay users to sponsors by Personal Money Store.
Users on Facebook who record their sexual preference as homosexual will get marketed to differently
Homosexual people being targeted by Facebook is not weird. It isn’t surprising at all. Facebook users are allowed to place on their Facebook which sexual preference they have. This is why Facebook had been intended by Mark Zuckerberg within the first place. If ads targeted users based on sexual choice, that would not be surprising. Ads already target users depending on the location that is listed. There had been a study done that showed a fictional gay person on Facebook getting really different ads than the other fictional individuals. This is something the Facebook privacy settings are designed to protect from happening though. Interestingly, ads to the fake lesbian user profile received ads that weren’t really different than the fabricated hetero female profile. The study authors explain the difference between gay and straight male ad targeting by pointing out that a homosexual bar wouldn’t want to place its ads on the profiles of straight men, whereas some straight women may be interested in such an advertisement, writes Gawker.
The ad you click will look at your Identification and choice information
Seems like the battle that protection groups have with Facebook is being seen. Clicking on an ad might expose a Facebook user’s IP address, e-mail address or browsing data to an advertiser. In the case of gay users, Facebook could indeed out gay users by revealing that data when an ad is clicked. An advertisement that is targeted toward homosexual men will go on someone’s profile, even if the user has selected to keep their sexual choice as private. This means that more “gay-themed” marketing will start to appear after clicking on one ad, claims Gawker.
Data from
Saikat
saikat.guha.cc/pub/imc10-ads.pdf
Gawker
gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-advertisers
Paranoia
paranoia.dubfire.net/2010/10/more-private-data-leakage-at-facebook.html