Report that Facebook outs gay customers arises

Facebook might have erred again on the side of lack of privacy, writes Slight Paranoia. A recent technical study entitled “Challenges in Measuring Online Advertising Systems” was published by a Microsoft investigator and two investigators from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, and if what it implies is true, all Facebook customers should give a second thought to their Facebook data, even if it’s marked private. What the research indicates is that there may be yet an additional loophole, this time one where Facebook is outing homosexual customers to marketing parties. Resource for this article – Report suggests Facebook is outing gay users to sponsors by Personal Money Store.

Difference in advertisements for shown gay Facebook users

Gay individuals being targeted by Facebook isn’t weird. It isn’t surprising at all. The fact is that Facebook users have the option of listing the gender of the type of partner in which they’re interested. This is why Facebook had been intended by Zuckerberg within the first place. Facebook targets ads to users based on the demographic data presented by the user, which is why it would not be surprising if ads were targeted depending on sexual preference.

Although these lines are supposed to be protected with the personal privacy settings Facebook has, a recent research paper showed that when using a bunch of control profiles on Facebook, the fictional gay male character received very different ads than the rest. Interestingly, ads to the fake lesbian user profile received ads that weren’t very different than the fabricated hetero female profile. The study authors explain the main difference between homosexual 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 might be interested in such an ad, writes Gawker.

Flash your ID and choice information on the ad

Next comes the ongoing battle consumer protection groups have with Facebook. Clicking on an ad may expose a Facebook user’s IP address, e-mail address or browsing data to an advertiser. A user may be shown as gay when clicking on the ad. This is how Facebook could out them. Gawker explains that a user who hides their sexual preference with privacy settings on Facebook may still start to determine more “gay-themed” advertising after going to the homosexual men ad.

Citations

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