Facebook aims to market its user data bank to businesses

[Turborama]

Source: Guardian (UK)

Richard Wray

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 February 2009 19.58 GMT

Facebook intends to capitalise on the wealth of information it has about its users by offering its 150 million-strong customer base to corporations as a market research tool. The appearance, later this year, of corporate polls targeted at certain parts of the Facebook audience because of the information they have posted on their pages, is likely to infuriate privacy campaigners.

Last week Mark Zuckerberg, the company's 24-year-old founder and chief executive, showed the audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos how the social networking site could be used to poll specific groups of users.

=snip=

Speaking to well known tech blogger Robert Scoble at the event, Zuckerberg said 2009 will be Facebook's "intense" year as it tries to justify some of the mammoth valuations that have been placed upon it by making some serious revenues through advertising.

=snip=

He added the company has been experimenting with analysis of user sentiment, tracking the mood of its audience through what they are doing online. Such information is potentially very interesting to large brands, which are always seeking to measure what their customers think about their own or competitors' products.

=snip=

Facebook Lexicon shows that the company already has a significant database of user information which it could exploit and the tools are in place to allow companies to use its information for market research purposes.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/01/facebook-seeks-to-exploit-user-information

[Skittles]

1. LOLOL

like anyone couldn't see THIS coming :rofl:

[billyoc]

2. Wow, no premonition could have seen this.

:eyes:

[gauguin57]

3. That's why I put very little personal info on my facebook page. Stunning F-book fact: I like NPR.!

Try to do something with that, marketers!

[Posteritatis]

19. Mine is a den of horrible lies. Take that, market research! (nt)

[Hissyspit]

4. And here we go again...

Didn't you just apologize for similar shit a year ago, Zuckerberg?

[jennied]

5. I'm glad I don't use Facebook.

Though I am on a couple of social network sites, only out of business necessity.

[beac]

22. My sister and friends have been bugging me to join Facebook.

With this latest bombshell on top of this story from a few days ago about identity theft thru Facebook:

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/01/post-1.html


at last I can tell them it's more than the nauseating high-school-popularity-contest aspect that keeps me FAR away from Facebook.

[eShirl]

6. Is that why they keep wanting me to upload my email address book?

They ain't gettin' it.

[Kittycat]

16. I would never do that.

It's like sending spam mail to your friends. There are some things you shouldn't do.

[Downwinder]

7. Ought to make for a lot of spam.

Then they can put out targeted filters.

[whistle]

8. Why not capitalize on the 150 million gullible people who signed on

...Just wait until the republicans and KKKarl Rove get their fascistic hands on that database. It will be Nuremberg all over again

[Tab]

9. The ironic thing

is that if you're a software developer and want to make a Facebook application, that Facebook makes this big frickin' deal about protecting and not abusing the private information about its users - who they are, etc. Which is a totally valid request, and I fully support it, but to have them turn around and do what they admonish others NOT to do...

[Stalwart]

10. The Government

is way ahead of Facebook. This is how the government can monetize its data base and get us out of the economic crises.

[nebenaube]

12. din! ding! ding!...

wow, I could not have said that better...

[Odin2005]

11. Hmmm, that must be why I've noticed an increase in spam.

I use Facebook religiously.

[Stalwart]

17. Second Life

is only a free range form of Facebook. The marketing information that it can associate with the fantasies of its participants is perhaps even more valuable and the demographic more exploitable? Even genealogy sites are adopting the same social media approach to expand their growth and potentially monetize their data base.

The data can be monetized by selling data mining rights in some controlled fashion to "business partners" that evades any appropriate laws or privacy statements. Privacy statements can be changed any time at the whim of the information holder.

[treestar]

13. How useful is that in a bad economy

Market all they want, people have to have money to spend. If they don't, 80 brazillion commercials aren't going to help.

[terisan]

14. Facebook Idea Stolen from students? Looks like Zuckerberg may have to pay up soon.

<http://valleywag.gawker.com/279013/tech/facebook/mark-zuckerbergs-lawsuit-that-wont-go-away>


A legal dispute from Mark Zuckerberg's past is not going away. Three years ago, fellow Harvard students Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he'd taken code he'd written for ConnectU to launch his rival site. Now, legal filings reveal, the lawsuit is rolling forward, with motions to dismiss set to be heard on July 25.

[crikkett]

15. i knew it, i knew it, i knew it.

actually it was never a secret that anyone signing up for a social networking site was also signing up to be a subject of only the most intrusive marketing studies.

[bikebloke]

18. I use a nom de guerre on Facebook

And left out most of my personal info. It's mainly a showcase for my photo-videos. A Dutch friend was going to sign up for the group I created for our old kibbutz. Then I told her about the info selling and she had a change of heart.

[Matariki]

20. Wonder when Google will follow suit?

All your Search History are belong to us

[Chovexani]

21. They already use it to target advertising

Really, why people are shocked and outraged about this is beyond me.

If you're paranoid about privacy concerns FB is not the social networking site for you, and you've known that for ages. It's not like people haven't been wanking about this since FB started. Personally I don't give a shit because most of my shit is on the internet in some capacity anyway at this point, with as long as I've been active on it (I started on Usenet in the stone age, when it was considered bad form to post under pseudonyms, and people routinely put work numbers, etc in their sig lines).

[no name no slogan]

23. THIS x A BRAZILLION

Like it or not, our lives are an open book, and have been for quite some time. We get marketed to every second of every day, usually when we least suspect it.

The trick is to know when you're being manipulated. And to manipulate the manipulators back. :evilgrin:

[damntexdem]

24. I knew there was a reason to not sign up.

Several reasons in fact.

[superconnected]

26. Another reason was a few months ago when a credit company in Austrailia

legally won a case where they could send their correspondences demanding money to a facebook email account - they only way they could track one lady down.

[superconnected]

25. Close your face book accounts, it's not worth it.

[Zhade]

27. Oh, guess I'll be ditching Facebook then.

NT!

[fascisthunter]

28. Problem is, They Already Have Your Information...

and they already have mine. Selling personal information should be illegal.

[fascisthunter]

29. They Should Be Sued if They Do... Class Action

challenge its legality because there is a lot to lose. Send it to the court... the people need a say.