Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is now selling its advertisers a little bit more insight into its users, according to Mashable. The company has said it isn’t giving advertisers the name of users who might be interested in their products or services, but it is using its data and matching it up with the information owned by Datalogix.
This means that even though Facebook is able to find a match for one of its users on Datalogix, there’s no specific information passing to advertisers. It also shows just how much Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is privy to the purchasing habits of its users.
Now the social media site is selling that data to make a profit.
The new feature is called “Lookalike Audiences,” and it allows marketers to find Facebook users who look similar to the users who are in their Custom Audiences — another Facebook feature which allows advertisers to build their campaigns on the site.
The data could enable advertisers to target their campaigns even more specifically, possibly by creating separate groups for ads marketing to users of competing products, frequent users of their products, and occasional users of their products.
This new advertising feature is likely to raise a few eyebrows in the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) community. The site has been struggling with users’ increasing privacy concerns since it went public last year. The more the company seeks to monetize the information it has, the more careful it must be with users’ information and privacy.
The social network’s new Graph Search feature has made users’ information even more searchable in recent weeks, which means it’s now easier than ever to learn small details about users by doing a simple search on the site.
Shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) fell more than 2 percent in Wednesday afternoon trading.
