Facebook To Let Advertisers Bid on Your Browser Data

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-facebook-about-to-launch-facebook-exchange-realtime-ad-bidding-20120613,0,2535363.story

by akandiah • 14 years ago

35 55 14 years ago

latimes.com

Toshio3• 14 years ago

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

sonicaa• 14 years ago

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

Toshio3• 14 years ago

Thanks, but that's not what I meant to ask. There's a Firefox add-on that knows about about all the privacy-invading companies out there, and prevents Firefox from connecting to their servers.

kennu• 14 years ago

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.)

smoyer2• 14 years ago

Ctrl-Shft-P is "Start Private Browsing" (also available in the "Tools" menu (on Linux). Private browsing is described here: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/private-browsing-browse-....

Chrome has a similar feature if you open a new "Incognito Window".

nekgrim• 14 years ago

Ghostery? https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/ghostery/ or Priv3? http://priv3.icsi.berkeley.edu/

Toshio3• 14 years ago

Yep, thanks, Ghostery is the one I had in mind. I'll take a look at Priv3 as well.

chokma• 14 years ago

Request Policy Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy...

Better than "Private Browsing" or "do not track" for 3rd-party surveillance, because it will not load other server's tracking images / javascript.

Only downside: expect some frustration when shopping online. It will break your first attempt at paying for anything via 3rd party payment services (which often use 3-4 different redirects to obscure banking providers - and each redirect / iframe will fail, of course). You can whitelist those, but it is more work.

ams6110• 14 years ago

I use the hosts file from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

That blocks advertising sites regardless of browser. I also have added facebooks's domains to my hosts file (needless to say I don't use Facebook).

smoyer2• 14 years ago

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.

JohannL2• 14 years ago

> “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• 14 years ago

The 'inventory' they refer to is ad inventory.

JohannL2• 14 years ago

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.

antonioevans• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

jpwagner5• 14 years ago

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

coopdog• 14 years ago

why?

jpwagner5• 14 years ago

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.

ceejayoz4• 14 years ago

And send you an invoice for use of the site that exactly equals it?

jpwagner5• 14 years ago

why? facebook would benefit a ton from crowdsourcing their revenue. users could artificially drive up the value of their browsing history through various tricks that would develop.

spodek• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

"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• 14 years ago

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.

oz• 14 years ago

>That's why people are leaving.

Are that many people really leaving Facebook?

mootothemax• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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).

horsehead2• 14 years ago

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.

jonknee2• 14 years ago

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.

gouranga• 14 years ago

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

voodoochilo• 14 years ago

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

arebop• 14 years ago

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

sp332• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

But you needed to click on the ad

planetguy3• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

Incognito mode?

planetguy3• 14 years ago

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.

beagle3• 14 years ago

It's called "request policy", it's a Firefox extension, and it does that and a whole lot more (although it does need a little configuration. And it will make you appreciate how much data random sites are giving about you to other sites who collect data)

drcube• 14 years ago

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.

Facebook To Let Advertisers Bid on Your Browser Data

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