The data CA used wasn't collected by them. They got it from a research project at Cambridge University's Psychometrics Center. This is exactly the same situation.
Aleksandar Kogan was a lecturer at Cambridge who then built his own app based on Stilwell's and Kosinki's app and work. Aleksandar then turned around and sold his version to SCL - the parent of Cambridge Analytica. And the reason that Cambridge Analytica wanted his app was because it worked under the social network’s pre-2014 term of service which allowed app developers to harvest data not only from the people who installed the app as well those people's friends.
Stillwell also denied Kogan's request for access to to his and Kosinskis myPersonality dataset. So No the Cambridge Analytica data did not come from Cabridge University or the Psychometrics Center.
The NYU Ad Observatory's data is completely public and the intended audience of that data is journalists and researchers doing analysis of online political advertising. This is the polar opposite of clandestinely harvesting user data in order to manipulate people.
So no it's not "exactly" the same situation but rather the exact opposite.
"That data was acquired via “thisisyourdigitallife,” a third-party app created by a researcher at Cambridge University's Psychometrics Centre. Nearly 300,000 people downloaded it, thereby handing the researcher—and Cambridge Analytica—access to not just their own data, and their friends' as well."
https://www.wired.com/amp-stories/cambridge-analytica-explai...
re: "the exact opposite", you are putting a lot of weight on the intention behind this use. After the public response to CA you might appreciate why FB is going to strictly apply the rules.
But I generally agree that users running an extension in their own browser is a different situation than an app developer subject to the FB ToS and am not sure why FB would be allowed to block this.
Kogan's app was based on the myPersonality app which was developed by Kosinski and Dr David Stillwell who did work at the Psychometrics Lab and denied Kogan access to their dataset. Cambridge Analytica and Cambridge University are not the same thing at all. So there is no comparison to NYU and Cambridge Analytica or Cambridge University for that matter.
Saying I'm "putting a lot of weight on the intention behind this use" is kind of a bizarre statement considering the data is literally available to everybody. See:
https://adobserver.org/ad-database/
The Project also clearly states:
">If you want, you can enter basic demographic information about yourself in the tool to help improve our understanding of why advertisers targeted you. However, we’ll never ask for information that could identify you"
And to that end the code for the plugin that the Ad Observatory project is used also freely available:
https://github.com/OnlinePoliticalTransparency/social-media-...
How much more transparent can you get than that? The goal of the Ad Observatory project is literally to try to understand how we are being targeted and manipulated. How is this in anyway the same as the secret harvesting of data by a political consultancy that billed itself as providing "election management" services?
To the grandparent: A researcher selling IRB-protected data would be effectively ending their academic career and opening themselves up to a mountain of legal trouble from the university and anyone who participated in the trial.