I think the last paragraph is the most important one:
>"Facebook clarified that it will still work with companies like Experian and Acxiom in order to measure ad performance and provide metrics, although it will also be conducting a review of those ongoing relationships."
These FB announcements the last couple of days seem little more than grooming for possible upcoming appearances in front of legislators. They can point to this and the surface-level app redesign and say they've "already" taken efforts to shore up concerns.
I think most people have no idea that FB and Experian - a consumer credit reporting agency have been sharing data at all. Where was that explained in the app redesign that was trotted out yesterday?
It's worth reading how Acxion who facing similar pressures recently handled their own superficial offering of "transparency":
> grooming for possible upcoming appearances in front of legislators
Facebook knows what pretty much everyone in the Valley knows; 90%+ of the politicians in this country (and likely most other countries) don't have the technical education to understand just how little Facebook is actually doing to fix the problem.
I would really like to know what data they are sharing with Experian.
If its just helping them target ads then they should explain why Experian is allowed to continue, but I am more concerned with Experian being "creative" with Facebook's tools and incorporating some of that into their credit scoring models.
I still don't see anyone addressing the elephant in the room: corporate, extensive personal data harvesting must stop.
If this is Facebook's business model, Facebook must go.
No one would allow the kind of pervasive intrusion put in practice by Facebook (and others) by the part of governing bodies, the police or the military. So why are we still allowing marketing companies to do it? Why are willing to let credit, insurance and health companies access our data in order to know us better than ourselves? When is this the price of a "better user experience"? It is disingenuous to say that people simply "agreed to this". No one can expect the average user to fully comprehend the inner workings of the modern web, and to what extent their data is being used, or even to keep up with changing terms of use for every single service.
Some, like Tim Cook, are starting to address the issue but not as directly as one would expect.
The funny thing is FB would be wildly successful without all the nonsense, just make a bit less profit. But this insane obsession with money is what drives companies to act against their ultimate self interest, it is classical short term thinking over long term thinking.
Why are you saying "Facebook must go" rather than "people must stop using Facebook"? The difference between Facebook and the police, military or governing bodies is that those bodies are government bodies created by governmental acts whereas Facebook is a private company that people freely choose to interact with.
People who care about the extensive personal data harvesting are free to stop using Facebook. You say "No one can expect the average user to fully comprehend the inner workings of the modern web" but there is no shortage of people summarizing the salient details for them, and those who hear the summary and choose not to use Facebook are free to do so.
I don't like Facebook and use it rarely. I'm glad they exist so I can check up on my friends.
What you are proposing amounts to increased government control over what kinds of services can be offered in the marketplace. I think you should be more afraid of government control of private interactions. In the US and Europe it's already far too intrusive.
Legislating the problem away won't work in the long run. The fix we need to the internet and web is technical. Too many people want the data. It's too valuable.
If a credit company doesn't know who you are they will not loan you even one dollar. If an insurance company doesn't know who you are they will charge you the maximum to account for the risk. If a health company doesn't know your data they can't accurately diagnose trends in your health. Still want to play this game?
I might catch some flak for saying this, but as a marketer this is a pretty significant change and will make running campaigns more difficult.
Also, I don’t really see how this does much to protect anyone’s privacy, this mostly just makes running effective campaigns more complicated and expensive. The data is still being collected and sold, now you can’t just get it directly through Facebook anymore.
> I might catch some flak for saying this, but as a marketer this is a pretty significant change and will make running campaigns more difficult.
Excellent.
> Also, I don’t really see how this does much to protect anyone’s privacy, this mostly just makes running effective campaigns more complicated and expensive.
If you don't have access to data you shouldn't have access to that improves privacy. Exchanges leaking data which then gets cached is a huge privacy issue, allowing third parties to link up this data with data they already have is absolutely terrible. Data files in isolation are bad enough, allowing the joining of disjoint datasets is about as bad as it gets when it comes do de-anonymizing people.
> The data is still being collected and sold, now you can’t just get it directly through Facebook anymore.
Good. Not all data will still be available, and hopefully some more of these holes will be closed soon to make it even harder to make running highly targeted campaigns more difficult.
From where I'm sitting the sooner marketeers lose the capability to run targeted campaigns the better, and every little bit helps.
On the plus side: your budgets will go up to reach the same effect so why complain?
I don't think it is intended to protect users' privacy, indeed it seems to me that it is against Facebook's interest to protect user privacy from advertisers - the platform is primarily valuable to marketers because of the user data that is available to them.
I think by shutting down the marketplace for 3rd party data, Facebook is allowing it to continue elsewhere but also washing their hands a bit, so next time they will have better optics when explaining themselves to regulators if data misuse hits the headlines again.
I think the pixel and first party data is where the real results come from...the third party data was probably on the chopping block long before this CA story...
It will make some marketers feel less in control...but i actually doubt that data actually warranted the additional costs facebook charged for using it.
Its _almost_ like, and tell me if I'm crazy here, that Facebook may prefer making changes that benefit it while _appearing_ as if it were benefiting consumers.
Like surface-level changes that look good in a congressional hearing but actually just raise prices and increase ad-spending to maintain the same result.
> Contact targeting is a LinkedIn Marketing Solutions feature that allows advertisers to upload lists of contacts to include as part of their target audience for ad campaigns. If you have already interacted with a company and provided them with your contact information (e.g. to sign-up for a newsletter or webinar), they may include you in a target audience for a LinkedIn ad campaign using contact targeting.
Twitter's rough equivalent is called "Tailored Audiences," though as far as I know, it relies only on hashed email addresses and device IDs uploaded directly by the advertiser, not data appending companies: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/ads/audiences/overview
TechCrunch doesn't say exactly what part of Facebook's product will be rolled back - uploading any hashed user lists? hashed user targeting only when done by third-party data appenders? only when based on offline events? - so it's hard to tell how far Facebook is going.
Facebook is still keeping this. If the advertiser provides your info to Facebook they can target you. They are getting rid of the ability to target you based on data Facebook purchases from third parties - e.g. you buy something in a Sephora store, Facebook buys transaction info from your bank/visa/"brokers" and then tags you as "bought beauty in last 30 days", then a brand targets that tag and you see an ad you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
And yes, there's a specific Facebook targeting category for "bought beauty last 30 days", or was before this change.
One possible conspiracy... Facebook stock has dropped a bunch, site usage is down 24% and advertisers are leaving left and right... anounce these audience segments will be gone in 6 months but advertisers can A, reach them now and B, build first party audiences off this data by advertising to specific segments just to cookie folks... and the next two earnings calls show a big increase in ad spend!
I wonder if this just means they know so much about people from first-party data they've collected (including their share buttons on other sites) that the additional performance gains from third-party data weren't worth much.
Honestly, I think this is a fallout of third party data being too expensive relative to the increase in performance more than anything else... middleware ad tech and data sellers are a failed experiment that has been a net negative for advertisers, users and publishers..all it did was just enrich some bloated ad tech startups to steal a piece of the pie...its a scam that floated on smoke and mirror attribution models...and advertisers who actually control their budgets have smartened up finally...its artificially propped up by agencies incentivized to spend more and make their clients look good in a powerpoint and colorful excel sheet...without true accountability to REALITY!
I think we will see many more hits to the third party data world and ad tech that promises richer targeting without really serving the users or advertisers by enabling them to deliver better value...versus just paying twice for customers they would have anyways short of the third party selling your customers to your competitors...its a shell game and its finally coming crashing down!!! GOOD RIDDANCE!
This is a fairly major change, and will have some fairly significant impacts on the AdTech industry. I'd go as far as saying this was the first really meaningful fallout from the CA scandal.
I'd hazard a guess that not many ordinary users are even aware that retailers can upload their email addresses into Facebook and create targeting segments from them.
As to what these changes do to the AdTech industry is anyone's guess. 'Onboarding' email addresses is basically LiveRamp's business model.
I highly doubt this had anything to do with CA, outside of some PR timing... third party data is stale and expensive and advertisers were already complaining of costs on FB... this will make it cheaper for mom and pop advertisers and scare away the affiliate marketers mostly.. facebooks owm data and first party audience data is still open season and where the ad dollar shift has been happening anyways...
This was a smart biz decision and CA was just a convenient opportunity to roll out without too much backlash IMHO.
that's not what is being removed. It's 3rd party data that FB is purchasing not, that advertisers are providing through Custom Audiences for Lookalikes.
Facebook is to me a clear case, where missing company values created a huge mess. What are the core values/core beliefs of Facebook? I firmly believe that other than anything else a set of core values determines the long term fate of companies. Of course, it’s not enough to merely have a set of beliefs that you’ve put up nicely on the wall, but, rather, top management must speak and act according to these principles.
I believe this is related to GDPR, which isn't clear in the article.
This is the information from Facebook (via Dennis Yu from Blitz Metrics):
// from Facebook:
Although I have spoken with many of you just today and yesterday, I wanted to make you immediately aware of an update we received to third-party targeting, late this afternoon.
We have a responsibility for the use of data on our platform - and we want to ensure that people have transparency and control over how their information is used. Over the past week, we announced important changes to reduce the amount of data that apps can request from users and ensure that people have more control over their information on Facebook. Now, to build on these efforts, we are going to be more restrictive in the way that we use data for advertising on our platform, particularly as it relates to information from third-party data providers.
Specifically, over the next six months, we will remove the ability to use Partner Categories, a targeting solution that enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While leveraging third-party data is a common industry practice and we've put good protections in place, we believe this step will help improve people's privacy on Facebook.
We understand this may impact your advertising efforts on our platform, and we will work with you through this transition. In an attempt to minimize disruption, we will allow time for you to update your targeting. In light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, we have created a timeline to comply with the regulation:
· May 10: After this date, you will no longer be able to create or edit campaign using Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France; however, they will be allowed to continue running until May 24.
· May 25: We will no longer deliver to Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France, and these targeting options will no longer be available for use on our platform. You will notified to update any targeting containing impacted Partner Categories before this date.
· June 30: Last day for creating new or editing existing campaigns using non-EU Partner Categories; they will be allowed to run until September 30.
· October 1: All other Partner Categories will no longer be available as targeting options on our platform and we will stop delivering against these audiences. You will be notified to update your targeting by this date.
Protecting people’s information is the most important thing we do. You can expect to hear more from us in the coming weeks as we continue to work to make our platform safer.
Not sure what this really means, but it's impressive how many measures FB is publicly taking that seem to improve the privacy of users. Again, not sure if it really does, but it sure makes it seem like it does.
It's a step in the right direction, but still I don't trust Facebook making a decision like that. In the end they'll just replace it with something else which might turn out even worse than before. You cannot make money selling user data by cutting off data channels to your third party customer base. So, I'm waiting. Off Facebook.
I know it's been tried many times unsuccessfully, but with the benefit of hindsight now would you have preferred to pay a nominal annual fee for the handful of currently free services that you really like?
I realize we're likely too far gone now, but it's fundamentally an issue that we aren't paying for these ad-supported services, so the companies gravitate toward serving the interests of the entities that are paying them.
That's not a justification or reflection of my opinion about privacy and ethics around the use of data, just a thought around removing the problem from the equation all together.
I guess my real question is, if you remove the profit seeking component of the data discussion does the bad behavior completely go away? Definitely interested in other opinions.
Pfff, so? These companies have the data already, and if not, they have long 6 months to get them. This only tells me that Facebook is trying to act as we wish to yet acting as it always did.
I would assume the issue was that they had to give these companies data in order to match up a facebook user with an ID in the third party systems. See, for example, BlueKai's integration documentation: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/data-cloud/dsmkt/integ...
[+] [-] bogomipz|8 years ago|reply
>"Facebook clarified that it will still work with companies like Experian and Acxiom in order to measure ad performance and provide metrics, although it will also be conducting a review of those ongoing relationships."
These FB announcements the last couple of days seem little more than grooming for possible upcoming appearances in front of legislators. They can point to this and the surface-level app redesign and say they've "already" taken efforts to shore up concerns.
I think most people have no idea that FB and Experian - a consumer credit reporting agency have been sharing data at all. Where was that explained in the app redesign that was trotted out yesterday?
It's worth reading how Acxion who facing similar pressures recently handled their own superficial offering of "transparency":
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/technology/acxiom-lets-co...
[+] [-] Zelphyr|8 years ago|reply
Facebook knows what pretty much everyone in the Valley knows; 90%+ of the politicians in this country (and likely most other countries) don't have the technical education to understand just how little Facebook is actually doing to fix the problem.
[+] [-] philipodonnell|8 years ago|reply
If its just helping them target ads then they should explain why Experian is allowed to continue, but I am more concerned with Experian being "creative" with Facebook's tools and incorporating some of that into their credit scoring models.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chicob|8 years ago|reply
If this is Facebook's business model, Facebook must go.
No one would allow the kind of pervasive intrusion put in practice by Facebook (and others) by the part of governing bodies, the police or the military. So why are we still allowing marketing companies to do it? Why are willing to let credit, insurance and health companies access our data in order to know us better than ourselves? When is this the price of a "better user experience"? It is disingenuous to say that people simply "agreed to this". No one can expect the average user to fully comprehend the inner workings of the modern web, and to what extent their data is being used, or even to keep up with changing terms of use for every single service.
Some, like Tim Cook, are starting to address the issue but not as directly as one would expect.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsjoerg|8 years ago|reply
People who care about the extensive personal data harvesting are free to stop using Facebook. You say "No one can expect the average user to fully comprehend the inner workings of the modern web" but there is no shortage of people summarizing the salient details for them, and those who hear the summary and choose not to use Facebook are free to do so.
I don't like Facebook and use it rarely. I'm glad they exist so I can check up on my friends.
What you are proposing amounts to increased government control over what kinds of services can be offered in the marketplace. I think you should be more afraid of government control of private interactions. In the US and Europe it's already far too intrusive.
[+] [-] DanBC|8 years ago|reply
The whole of Europe is addressing this with various data protection laws, the latest being GDPR.
[+] [-] pnutjam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denzil_correa|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3pt14159|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matte_black|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nopacience|8 years ago|reply
snooped my profile ?
harvested my profile ?
snooped my high res pictures ?
snooped my friends list ?
snooped comments on my pictures ?
snooped comments on my profile ?
snooped my time line ?
snooped on posted/reposted videos ?
snooped on my about page ?
snooped on my sports page ?
snooped on my Videos ?
snooped on my Check-Ins ?
snooped on my Sports ?
snooped on my Music ?
snooped on my Movies ?
snooped on my TV Shows ?
snooped on my Books ?
snooped on my Apps and Games ?
snooped on my Likes ?
snooped on my Events ?
snooped on my Questions ?
snooped on my Reviews ?
snooped on my Groups ?
snooped on my Notes ?
snooped on my friend and clicked his/her name and left my profile to start snooping that person profile ?
snooped my friend (clicking thru my profile) ?
snooped on "X shared" button ?
snooped on "view X more comments" button ?
Maybe this data should be available to download. Users could have the right to know why visited their profiles.
The visitor has his privacy protected while the profile visited does not.
[+] [-] clay_the_ripper|8 years ago|reply
Also, I don’t really see how this does much to protect anyone’s privacy, this mostly just makes running effective campaigns more complicated and expensive. The data is still being collected and sold, now you can’t just get it directly through Facebook anymore.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
Excellent.
> Also, I don’t really see how this does much to protect anyone’s privacy, this mostly just makes running effective campaigns more complicated and expensive.
If you don't have access to data you shouldn't have access to that improves privacy. Exchanges leaking data which then gets cached is a huge privacy issue, allowing third parties to link up this data with data they already have is absolutely terrible. Data files in isolation are bad enough, allowing the joining of disjoint datasets is about as bad as it gets when it comes do de-anonymizing people.
> The data is still being collected and sold, now you can’t just get it directly through Facebook anymore.
Good. Not all data will still be available, and hopefully some more of these holes will be closed soon to make it even harder to make running highly targeted campaigns more difficult.
From where I'm sitting the sooner marketeers lose the capability to run targeted campaigns the better, and every little bit helps.
On the plus side: your budgets will go up to reach the same effect so why complain?
[+] [-] riazrizvi|8 years ago|reply
I think by shutting down the marketplace for 3rd party data, Facebook is allowing it to continue elsewhere but also washing their hands a bit, so next time they will have better optics when explaining themselves to regulators if data misuse hits the headlines again.
[+] [-] davemel37|8 years ago|reply
It will make some marketers feel less in control...but i actually doubt that data actually warranted the additional costs facebook charged for using it.
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|8 years ago|reply
I hope you weren't expecting any sympathy. A camera in our bathroom would also make it easier for you to suggest us a "better" shampoo, but no thanks.
>>this mostly just makes running effective campaigns more complicated and expensive.
Again, that's your problem.
>>The data is still being collected and sold, now you can’t just get it directly through Facebook anymore.
Until the outrage hits a tipping point.
[+] [-] philipodonnell|8 years ago|reply
Like surface-level changes that look good in a congressional hearing but actually just raise prices and increase ad-spending to maintain the same result.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cyborgx7|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] muthdra|8 years ago|reply
Poor thing.
[+] [-] troydavis|8 years ago|reply
> Contact targeting is a LinkedIn Marketing Solutions feature that allows advertisers to upload lists of contacts to include as part of their target audience for ad campaigns. If you have already interacted with a company and provided them with your contact information (e.g. to sign-up for a newsletter or webinar), they may include you in a target audience for a LinkedIn ad campaign using contact targeting.
It's part of "Matched Audiences": https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/81195
Twitter's rough equivalent is called "Tailored Audiences," though as far as I know, it relies only on hashed email addresses and device IDs uploaded directly by the advertiser, not data appending companies: https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/ads/audiences/overview
TechCrunch doesn't say exactly what part of Facebook's product will be rolled back - uploading any hashed user lists? hashed user targeting only when done by third-party data appenders? only when based on offline events? - so it's hard to tell how far Facebook is going.
[+] [-] ikeboy|8 years ago|reply
And yes, there's a specific Facebook targeting category for "bought beauty last 30 days", or was before this change.
[+] [-] davemel37|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcinzm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davemel37|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davemel37|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kristianc|8 years ago|reply
I'd hazard a guess that not many ordinary users are even aware that retailers can upload their email addresses into Facebook and create targeting segments from them.
As to what these changes do to the AdTech industry is anyone's guess. 'Onboarding' email addresses is basically LiveRamp's business model.
[+] [-] davemel37|8 years ago|reply
This was a smart biz decision and CA was just a convenient opportunity to roll out without too much backlash IMHO.
[+] [-] Uw7yTcf36gTc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baxtr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gt_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] partycoder|8 years ago|reply
I would not be surprised if this thing is undone later.
[+] [-] jedwhite|8 years ago|reply
This is the information from Facebook (via Dennis Yu from Blitz Metrics):
// from Facebook:
Although I have spoken with many of you just today and yesterday, I wanted to make you immediately aware of an update we received to third-party targeting, late this afternoon.
We have a responsibility for the use of data on our platform - and we want to ensure that people have transparency and control over how their information is used. Over the past week, we announced important changes to reduce the amount of data that apps can request from users and ensure that people have more control over their information on Facebook. Now, to build on these efforts, we are going to be more restrictive in the way that we use data for advertising on our platform, particularly as it relates to information from third-party data providers.
Specifically, over the next six months, we will remove the ability to use Partner Categories, a targeting solution that enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While leveraging third-party data is a common industry practice and we've put good protections in place, we believe this step will help improve people's privacy on Facebook.
We understand this may impact your advertising efforts on our platform, and we will work with you through this transition. In an attempt to minimize disruption, we will allow time for you to update your targeting. In light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, we have created a timeline to comply with the regulation:
· May 10: After this date, you will no longer be able to create or edit campaign using Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France; however, they will be allowed to continue running until May 24.
· May 25: We will no longer deliver to Partner Categories built on audiences from the UK, Germany, and France, and these targeting options will no longer be available for use on our platform. You will notified to update any targeting containing impacted Partner Categories before this date.
· June 30: Last day for creating new or editing existing campaigns using non-EU Partner Categories; they will be allowed to run until September 30.
· October 1: All other Partner Categories will no longer be available as targeting options on our platform and we will stop delivering against these audiences. You will be notified to update your targeting by this date.
Protecting people’s information is the most important thing we do. You can expect to hear more from us in the coming weeks as we continue to work to make our platform safer.
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shafyy|8 years ago|reply
Great tactical game by Facebook.
[+] [-] domevent|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dschuetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imcqueen|8 years ago|reply
I realize we're likely too far gone now, but it's fundamentally an issue that we aren't paying for these ad-supported services, so the companies gravitate toward serving the interests of the entities that are paying them.
That's not a justification or reflection of my opinion about privacy and ethics around the use of data, just a thought around removing the problem from the equation all together.
I guess my real question is, if you remove the profit seeking component of the data discussion does the bad behavior completely go away? Definitely interested in other opinions.
[+] [-] gaius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeriousM|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nitwit005|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rqs|8 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
And of course you can down vote, but we will meet again in the next Facebook scandal :)
[+] [-] chatmasta|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcatalfamo|8 years ago|reply