Does Facebook “Like” you too much?
Friday, July 23rd, 2010By: Antkeg Remi
When Facebook was first created, it was a great resource to reconnect with old friends, display family photos for distant relatives and to let everyone know where you’ll be this weekend. As it evolved and users began voluntarily posting more information about their likes and dislikes into their profiles, Facebook quickly realized that they struck marketing gold.
In an article by Ryan Singel, Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative, the author questions the direction and future intentions of Facebook. With recent privacy policy changes, suddenly information that was private when a user created their account was available to any interested company. These settings can be changed to block some information, but many have complained that it is a difficult process to find out how to do so. As Singel described it, “You can try to opt out after the fact, but you’ll need a master’s in Facebook bureaucracy to stop it permanently.”
In addition, anything new that is posted is automatically set to be completely public, even if you only want it available to specific groups. This all becomes completely public information that can be scanned and used for targeted online advertising while you view facebook. This is not all that different from the way Google places PPC ads on their search pages, but Facebook has begun to take their user profiling farther than that.
All over the internet, the new Facebook “Like This” button is showing up. When a user clicks this button, it automatically connects to their Facebook page and automatically posts to various parts of your profile page, such as your “news feed.” This shows anyone else that views your profile information that you think is interesting or want to share. However, what most users do not realize is that by “Liking” something, that external, non-Facebook company has access to all of your profile information. Dan Tynan’s article Why I, Like, Really Dislike Facebook’s ‘Like’ Button gives an example of how information can be shared without direct user consent.
At one point, the author linked his Pandora music account with his Facebook profile. One morning, he opened Pandora and the system pulled his music preferences from Facebook and started playing his favorite artists, even before he logged into his Pandora account. In another example, he added a new music station, and immediately Pandora told him which of his friends liked the same artist. This is relatively generic and harmless information, but it shows how easily an external website can pull facebook information together to tailor content to each user.
As a marketer, I see the potential in this technology and what it can provide for businesses, but as a consumer I see the danger as well. Users of Facebook are voluntarily providing their likes and dislikes in their profile that also lists their age, gender, ethnicity and geographic region. This is information that large corporations spend billions annually researching to compile their primary data. With the increasing connections being forged in the online world, Facebook is quickly becoming a hub for public profiling.
At this point, Facebook has not entered into the practice of selling this data directly to companies, but there is nothing saying that they can’t change their minds and begin to do so someday. Currently this information is only available to companies that are specifically “Liked” by an account holder.
By the end of both articles, the authors question how much information should Facebook really have about the public, and what are their rights in sharing it with outside businesses. Many complaints have been filed with the FTC regarding Facebook’s privacy policy, but as long as account holders continue to provide that information freely, Facebook will keep expanding their demographic data of over 500 million users.