Facebook New Ad Campaign Reignites Privacy Concerns

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Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has conjured new methods of succeeding in ad revenue generation, including targeted custom ads and the new gift service. However, these new methods are designed to use subscriber data to its maximum capacity, regardless of whether you are logged in the site, or you are browsing from another platform.

Facebook New Ad Campaign Reignites Privacy Concerns

This is a massive exposure of user data, which includes work history, residence, and your browsing history, among other critical information. The extensive exposure has led to users raising alarm over the security of their private information.

Normally, when you subscribe to various sites, there is always a note guaranteeing security of personal information, which is considered as confidential. Information, such as your residential address is critical, and companies do state that the information provided will be kept confidential. However, Facebook’s new strategy suggests that advertisers will be able to track your Facebook profile information, in order to target certain adverts that may be of interest to you.

Wall Street Journal wrote, “Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is using its data trove to study the links between Facebook ads and members’ shopping habits at brick-and-mortar stores, part of an effort to prove the effectiveness of its $3.7 billion annual ad business to marketers”. Facebook has been on the front foot, to enhance its ad revenue, which seems too insignificant compared to its massive user base of nearly 1 billion active users every month.

Additionally, Facebook has also been under intense pressure from both the media and equity analysts, which have consistently challenged the social media giant to convert its massive user base into income. Nonetheless, Facebook had been very ambiguous in its approach to the situation, until lately, when it started launching the unique ad campaigns that focus on using its users’ data.

Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan, was quoted saying, “We believe our business model is fully compatible with honoring privacy”. We have published several articles in regard to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s development in its bid to improve Ad revenue. Several equity analysts Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) research analysts, have pointed to the positive attitude Facebook has taken toward ad revenue generation. However, one question has been left un-addressed in almost all the opinions, and that has been the risk associated with information security in its new ad campaign.

Users could easily deny Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) the privilege of using their personal information at will, by omitting it in their profiles. However, this could yet prove to be a hard task, as the limited you make info you provide on your Facebook account, the fewer connection requests you are likely to get. Since Facebook is all about networking, without connections would render your subscription to the network meaningless. Facebook is also keen to take full advantage of this opportunity, and there is nothing users can do about it.

This is likely to be excellent news to advertisers, as they too, can save on launching irrelevant ads on several sites targeting random users. Secondly, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) will be able to collect more revenue without having to entirely, rely on its platforms, both the web-based platform, and the mobile app.

Technically, while this ad campaign exposes your personal information both on-site, and off-site, it also ensures that you never see unnecessary ads whenever you are searching the web, or are in other mobile apps, albeit from only those advertisers using the targeted custom ads feature.

At the time of this writing, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was trading at $22.34 per share, up $0.35, or 1.59%, from yesterday’s close.

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