Facebook ads get even more targeted/creepy

" "

A new program will mean companies advertising on Facebook can pick their
 targets even more efficiently. What makes the new tool so effective (or unsettling) is that it is based on information that users haven’t explicitly added to Facebook itself.

The tool allows companies to explicitly target people they know have already used their services or bought their products outside of Facebook. They can do this by bringing their own customer lists of phone numbers or e-mail addresses and have Facebook cross-reference them with the details users have listed for their accounts. If there’s a match, the user becomes eligible to see the ad.


It’s a perfect example of how aggregated data can produce unexpected and sometimes unwanted results. Any user who sees these ads will have voluntarily provided their address or number to Facebook and voluntarily provided the same details to the business. However, they likely won’t even have conceived of the idea that could result in the business effectively hunting them down in Facebook.

If everyone works as advertised, it’s unlikely that any laws are being broken, however creepy it might seem. That said, there are some gray areas. For example, if you have given a company your phone number but later told it not to call you again, it’s illegal for that company to make telemarketing calls to you (once 30 days have passed.) For the company to then use your number to target you via Facebook wouldn’t break the letter of the law, but certainly seems to shatter its spirit.

The good news is that Facebook promises it won’t gain any data in this way. The companies running the ads will provide their marketing lists for cross-referencing in a way that means Facebook can’t see the numbers or addresses that don’t match, and their copies of the lists are automatically wiped once the checking is complete.

Posted in: Facebook