dieseltaylor Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Julee Morrison has been obsessed with Bon Jovi since she was a teenager. So when paid ads for fan sites started popping up on the 41-year-old Salt Lake City blogger's Facebook page, she was thrilled. She described herself as a "clicking fool," perusing videos and photos of the New Jersey rockers. Then it dawned on Morrison why all those Bon Jovi ads appeared every time she logged onto the social networking site. "Facebook is reading my profile, my interests, the people and pages I am 'friends' with and targeting me," Morrison said. "It's brilliant social media, but it's absolutely creepy." For Facebook users, the free ride is over. For years, the privately held company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room put little effort into ad sales, focusing instead on making its service irresistible to users. It worked. Today more than 600 million people have Facebook accounts. The average user spends seven hours a month posting photos, chatting with friends, swapping news links and sending birthday greetings to classmates. Now the Palo Alto company is looking to cash in on this mother lode of personal information by helping advertisers pinpoint exactly who they want to reach. This is no idle boast. Facebook doesn't have to guess who its users are or what they like. Facebook knows, because members volunteer this information freely - and frequently - in their profiles, status updates, wall posts, messages and "likes." It's now tracking this activity, shooting online ads to users based on their demographics, interests, even what they say to friends on the site - sometimes within minutes of them typing a key word or phrase. For example, women who have changed their relationship status to "engaged" on their Facebook profiles shouldn't be surprised to see ads from local wedding planners and caterers pop up when they log in. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-facebook-cash-user.html Its an interesting thought but I wonder if I can target the Libyan and Egyptian freedom fighters : ) For the right money of course. Seems to me that things perhaps are going the way of those with big bucks. My preferred solution is that huge numbers of people leave Facebook to use more traditional forms of contact which do not make tracking easy. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noltyboy Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Welcome to the internet. Everyone does it including google etc. The tin foil hat dispensary will be opening soon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted May 1, 2011 Author Share Posted May 1, 2011 Having used computers for the last two decades, and been on the Internet for most of that, I am not unacquainted with it. However thank you for your welcome and the inciteful comment. : ). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abneo3sierra Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 In my opinion, those who use Facebook, SHOULD already know this..they are getting a service that obviously they like,and want..it is free..the only way to keep it free, is for the expense associated with it, to be paid by SOMEONE. Still, it is good to remind people that everything they do, is actually being "watched" lol. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dietrich Posted May 2, 2011 Share Posted May 2, 2011 Eventually it'll be impossible to watch any video (i.e., not just a much-watched one) on YouTube without having to first sit through a commercial. Wells Fargo has a before-the-actual-video commercial that's five and a half minutes long (though a button pops up counting down the seconds till you can skip the ad). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted May 2, 2011 Share Posted May 2, 2011 Nooo - pretty soon all advertisement will be product placement. Stop you skipping/muting/having another window open. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted May 2, 2011 Share Posted May 2, 2011 Still, it is good to remind people that everything they do, is actually being "watched" lol. Every time I fire my computer up, I notice that the activity lights on my modem blink rapidly for several seconds. I assume that it is reporting all my recent activity to someone somewhere. Which is why I keep all my plans for world domination somewhere else. Oops. I shouldn't have said that, should I? Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jev.Dk Posted May 2, 2011 Share Posted May 2, 2011 There are ads on facebook? I never noticed....thx god for adblock+Firefox 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted May 3, 2011 Author Share Posted May 3, 2011 http://www.scribd.com/doc/27394899/Microsoft-Spy Microsofts guide to what they hand over to law enforcement requests. Assange says that Facebook gives direct access to all its information to the FBI as it is easier[ more economic?]. Read about it here. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/wikileaks-assange-facebook-open-to-us-intelligence/9772?tag=nl.e539 Perhaps the most important for non-US people is that if it is stored in the US , or off-shore by an owned US company, their details can be accessed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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