Report that Facebook outs homosexual customers surfaces

Slight Paranoia accounts that Facebook have be on the wrong side of the user privacy issue – again. ”Challenges in Measuring Online Advertising Systems,” a technical study most recently published by researchers from Microsoft and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, may shed some light on yet one more dark side of Facebook. In unique, the research indicates that a loophole in the ubiquitous social network may actually be giving up gay customers to third party advertisers.

Ads on Facebook with users that have the sexual choice of homosexual are different

Facebook outing gay users isn’t an exercise in mind reading, content scrubbing or candid photo analysis. Facebook users are allowed to place on their Facebook which sexual preference they have. This had been something Mark Zuckerberg had in mind. It had been part of why he begun Facebook. Facebook targets ads to customers based on the demographic data presented by the user, which is why it would not be surprising if ads were targeted depending on sexual choice.

There was a study done that showed a fictional gay person on Facebook getting very different ads than the other fictional individuals. This is something the Facebook privacy settings are designed to protect from occurring though. It had been interesting to note that the women didn’t receive really different ads from one one more, even when one had been a fake lesbian. Gawker explains that homosexual and straight male marketing just implies that placing an ad for a gay man on a straight man’s profile might be really bad when women do not have this same issue and can see all the ads.

The ad sees your reference info and also takes your ID

Next comes the ongoing battle consumer protection groups have with Facebook. Advertisers get more info when you click on their ad. This contains your email address, browsing data and IP address. In the case of gay users, Facebook could indeed out gay users by revealing that information when an advertisement is clicked. An advertisement that is targeted toward homosexual men will go on someone’s profile, even if the user has selected to keep their sexual choice as private. This means that more “gay-themed” advertising will start to appear after clicking on one ad, says Gawker.

Information from

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