Marketers Can Glean Private Data on Facebook

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/23/technology/23facebook.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Here is a brief quote:

In her paper, Ms. Korolova said she used public sources to collect information like the location, gender, age and interests of a Facebook user. Then she placed an ad on Facebook that was aimed at those characteristics and also to people who are interested in people of the same sex.

If Facebook’s system indicated that the ad had been displayed to someone, she would know that the person was gay, because nobody else on Facebook was a match for those other attributes.

Received on Saturday, 23 October 2010 13:11:58 UTC