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They should be forced to display this in their sign up page. And with bold letters: "Be warned: We are trying to sell target ads based on your sensitive perso

They should be forced to display this in their sign up page. And with bold letters: "Be warned: We are trying to sell target ads based on your sensitive personal information such as, but not limited to: Sex Sexual Orientation Relationship status Income Education level "

jaywalk 6y ago
Maybe I'm weird, but I don't mind ads being targeted to me based on any info that I choose to make publicly available. If I have to see ads, at least give me relevant ones. I know Facebook goes well beyond that into some pretty creepy territory, but that's not what I'm talking about.
- eberkund 6y ago
  Most of the info is not publicly available but collected by inferring information about based on the pages you visit, who you talk and which other users you associate with.
  - heromal 6y ago
    That's... Public info.
    - Fezzik 6y ago
      I think that is in reference to Facebook mining your DMs and web searches, neither of which are viewable to your FB friends or other internet users at large. FB accesses any and everything they can regarding your browsing behavior and ends up with far more data about a user than what is displayed publicly on the user’s public profile.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  You are not the first to react with this cognitive dissonance. What if you don't have to see ads? Your reasoning depends on a presupposition that has been sold to you by Facebook and the tech industry that survives on ad spend. If you read the terms on the Facebook website it says, paraphrasing, "Facebook shall always remain free". It is not free of course, for its customers. The rationale Facebook offers for why it muct be free is something like "it must be free so Facebook can be available to people in poorer countries as a means of communication". Eeven if that were a reason, it is not a rationale why it must be free for Americans. The truth is actually that you are not Facebook's customer, unless you are buying ads or promotions. They can only charge customers. In order to lure in subjects (particpants) for the customers to advertise to, Facebook creates a website and gives participants their own pages where they can share photos, etc. and communicate with each other. Even particpants in clinical trials or other research studies get paid. Facebook should be paying you for being part of their experiment.
  - avalys 6y ago
    > Facebook should be paying you for being part of their experiment. They are paying you - by giving you free access to multiple products and services which all cost money to develop, maintain, and host.
    - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
      Facebook's customers are paying for ad services. If we market those "products and services" to which you refer -- I suspect they are not the ad services sold by Facebook -- on their own, what are they worth? More cognitive dissonance. People do not pay to particpate in research studies, even though they may get some "free stuff" in the course of participating in the research. The Facebook "service" is market research and advertising services. Whatever "free stuff" participants may receive in the course of participating is not "products and services" the research sponsor (advertisers), Facebook or anyone else can sell. No one would pay. Facebook users agree to be studied and marketed to by advertisers. As the participants, are providing Facebook with value. They are allowing Facebook to conduct market research and collect the data. If we subtract the Facebook customers - advertisers - then there is no paying customer. Development, maintenance and hosting are expenses necessary to provide the service of conducting the research and services for the paying customer. Users are not Facebook's customers. It matters little if any user says that Facebook has "value" when that same user would also refuse to pay to be a participant in Facebook's research on behalf of advertisers (research sponsors). Whatever "free stuff" users are getting by participating is not worth enough that they would pay for it. Communicating and sharing through websites is valuable. We pay for internet access so we can do that, among other things. Facebook is just an implementation detail.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I mostly agree. I don't have a problem getting some ads targeted based on the info I provide. What I DO mind is FB following me all around the web, so the one time I was bored and randomly clicked on some cheesy ad for something I would never buy, FB has decided I must love that and show me tons of retargeting or related ads. The thing that is so f*ing frustrating about both FB and Google is they could provide REALLY good targeted ads by only looking at stuff I provide (e.g. my submitted profile info, my search keywords). Instead they have to track everything I do to squeeze an extra X% out of their conversion numbers.
notahacker 6y ago
tbh there was much more creepiness when somebody on your campus could run searches of your campus based on this information, which round about that time they still could. Still, knowing this I left the sexual orientation and relationship status in the profile... As for ads, it was funnier when they ignored much of that available information. Seems hard to believe now but there was a long time when Facebook ads was a sidebar consisting of poorly targeted dating website ads.
kgin 6y ago
As long as that data only flows one direction ( advertiser configures ad -> Facebook matches ad -> user sees ad ) what is the concern?

jaywalk 6y ago

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't mind ads being targeted to me based on any info that I choose to make publicly available. If I have to see ads, at least give me relevant ones. I know Facebook goes well beyond that into some pretty creepy territory, but that's not what I'm talking about.

eberkund 6y ago
Most of the info is not publicly available but collected by inferring information about based on the pages you visit, who you talk and which other users you associate with.
- heromal 6y ago
  That's... Public info.
  - Fezzik 6y ago
    I think that is in reference to Facebook mining your DMs and web searches, neither of which are viewable to your FB friends or other internet users at large. FB accesses any and everything they can regarding your browsing behavior and ends up with far more data about a user than what is displayed publicly on the user’s public profile.
pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
You are not the first to react with this cognitive dissonance. What if you don't have to see ads? Your reasoning depends on a presupposition that has been sold to you by Facebook and the tech industry that survives on ad spend. If you read the terms on the Facebook website it says, paraphrasing, "Facebook shall always remain free". It is not free of course, for its customers. The rationale Facebook offers for why it muct be free is something like "it must be free so Facebook can be available to people in poorer countries as a means of communication". Eeven if that were a reason, it is not a rationale why it must be free for Americans. The truth is actually that you are not Facebook's customer, unless you are buying ads or promotions. They can only charge customers. In order to lure in subjects (particpants) for the customers to advertise to, Facebook creates a website and gives participants their own pages where they can share photos, etc. and communicate with each other. Even particpants in clinical trials or other research studies get paid. Facebook should be paying you for being part of their experiment.
- avalys 6y ago
  > Facebook should be paying you for being part of their experiment. They are paying you - by giving you free access to multiple products and services which all cost money to develop, maintain, and host.
  - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
    Facebook's customers are paying for ad services. If we market those "products and services" to which you refer -- I suspect they are not the ad services sold by Facebook -- on their own, what are they worth? More cognitive dissonance. People do not pay to particpate in research studies, even though they may get some "free stuff" in the course of participating in the research. The Facebook "service" is market research and advertising services. Whatever "free stuff" participants may receive in the course of participating is not "products and services" the research sponsor (advertisers), Facebook or anyone else can sell. No one would pay. Facebook users agree to be studied and marketed to by advertisers. As the participants, are providing Facebook with value. They are allowing Facebook to conduct market research and collect the data. If we subtract the Facebook customers - advertisers - then there is no paying customer. Development, maintenance and hosting are expenses necessary to provide the service of conducting the research and services for the paying customer. Users are not Facebook's customers. It matters little if any user says that Facebook has "value" when that same user would also refuse to pay to be a participant in Facebook's research on behalf of advertisers (research sponsors). Whatever "free stuff" users are getting by participating is not worth enough that they would pay for it. Communicating and sharing through websites is valuable. We pay for internet access so we can do that, among other things. Facebook is just an implementation detail.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I mostly agree. I don't have a problem getting some ads targeted based on the info I provide. What I DO mind is FB following me all around the web, so the one time I was bored and randomly clicked on some cheesy ad for something I would never buy, FB has decided I must love that and show me tons of retargeting or related ads. The thing that is so f*ing frustrating about both FB and Google is they could provide REALLY good targeted ads by only looking at stuff I provide (e.g. my submitted profile info, my search keywords). Instead they have to track everything I do to squeeze an extra X% out of their conversion numbers.

notahacker 6y ago

tbh there was much more creepiness when somebody on your campus could run searches of your campus based on this information, which round about that time they still could. Still, knowing this I left the sexual orientation and relationship status in the profile... As for ads, it was funnier when they ignored much of that available information. Seems hard to believe now but there was a long time when Facebook ads was a sidebar consisting of poorly targeted dating website ads.

kgin 6y ago

As long as that data only flows one direction ( advertiser configures ad -> Facebook matches ad -> user sees ad ) what is the concern?