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Comment by nbm | Hacker News Reader

What makes you say that Facebook will "sell your personal data to advertisers"?

Do you mean that advertisers pay to get information like your name, email address, street location, and other identifiable information about you, like in a huge spreadsheet?

Or do you mean that advertisers can pay money to have their adverts displayed to the sorts of people who most likely will be interested in them but receive no personal data, as explained at https://www.facebook.com/about/ads/ ?

While I get that some people like to make it sound more dramatic by saying "sell your personal data to advertisers" while understanding how it works, it's also common that people just don't understand.

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I do understand. Online advertising in a free product is an essential part of the business model where I work. I do understand perfectly the nuance of which you speak because I deal with personally identifiable information everyday.

Where I draw the line is when Facebook goes out of their way to learn about their users as a way to enrich their advertising platform through sneaky means. For instance, every 'Like' button on any web page can track where you go on the internet. While they don't hand this information directly over to their advertisers, its essentially spying without consent and then profiting from it. I consider my browsing history personal data because its mine, not Facebook's.

Would it make you more comfortable to say "they spy on me and then use that information to target me in ways I did not want Facebook's clients to leverage?" This holds especially true since that tracked behavior happens outside of their walled garden.

I say "sell your personal data to advertisers" because colloquially more people understand that and its a recognizable sound bite. But the nuance is there, I deal with it everyday in my job so I understand it, and I think Facebook crosses the line.

It seems to me that "sell your personal data to advertisers" sows more confusion through its recognition than clarity. People who hear "sell your personal data to advertisers" without your background tend to believe it literally - money is given to Facebook in exchange for personal information (ie, someone's name and particular data about them).

In terms of the "Like" button and other social plugins, unfortunately there's not all that much to be done about the way the technologies in the web works. Facebook came up with this "widget" that provided way more value to people than the equivalent buttons from Digg, Delicious, and several others, many of which encourage integration that uses resources stored on a central server which could allow tracking even without clicking on them. Many of these widgets need to talk to a server anyway - to provide credibility and popularity by showing how many people have liked the content. However, the "Like" button needs to talk to a server to provide its additional value - to show you a list of your friends who have also liked this content.

I encourage you to read the Facebook Data Use Policy, especially the section about "Social plugins" under "Other websites applications", and the link through to the Help Center that gives even more information about how that data is and is not used.

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