50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm • Hacker News Board

Re: 50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm

#21

Post by rmaccloy » Wed, Jun 29, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

bproper wrote: post #8

46Bit wrote: post #7

This is a complete non-story. Every Facebook profile is owned by an ad firm. Every Gmail account is owned by an ad firm. Every + account is owned by an ad firm. Every Yahoo Mail account is owned by a bit of an ad firm - ditto for Live. Generally, every free service is selling you and your time. This really shouldn't be surprising.

That is completely wrong. People who buy ads against Facebook and Google profiles don't get to see specific info about the users they are targeting. In this case the firm doing the targeting is also the firm that can see all the profile data.

Facebook and Google both do their own targeting (obviously.) Google allows access to some data for 3rd-party firms via RTB. Neither pass on PII (or really any non-aggregate) data to advertisers, AFAIK, I'd be surprised if Specific did either.

Google and Facebook both have a consumer-facing presence so you think of them as being more accountable, but they're both advertising businesses, no doubt.

Re: 50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm

#22

Post by Tomek_Kopczuk » Wed, Jun 29, 2011, 9:44 PM UTC

Did anyone really expect them NOT to sell this data for ad purposes?

Services like Google, Myspace and facebook are free. Don't kid yourself, they are doing this for money. If you pay - demand privacy. If it's free - come on, you did put all the personal data voluntarily, didn't you?

All they use is statistical data. Be fair - no one really cares about your individual private data, unless you're rich and/or famous. But then you will be much more cautious about sharing personal data on the web. You will, won't you?

Re: 50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm

#23

Post by z2amiller » Wed, Jun 29, 2011, 10:38 PM UTC

Tomek_Kopczuk wrote: post #22

Did anyone really expect them NOT to sell this data for ad purposes? Services like Google, Myspace and facebook are free. Don't kid yourself, they are doing this for money. If you pay - demand privacy. If it's free - come on, you did put all the personal data voluntarily, didn't you? All they use is statistical data. Be fair - no one really cares about your individual private data, unless you're rich and/or famous. B…

If you're not paying for it, you're the product.

Re: 50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm

#24

Post by mturmon » Wed, Jun 29, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

46Bit wrote: post #7

This is a complete non-story. Every Facebook profile is owned by an ad firm. Every Gmail account is owned by an ad firm. Every + account is owned by an ad firm. Every Yahoo Mail account is owned by a bit of an ad firm - ditto for Live. Generally, every free service is selling you and your time. This really shouldn't be surprising.

Agreed, but the novelty here is that the personal information was given to one organization, but is now owned in toto by another organization.

It's different than Google's insight into your buying interests from Gmail, because they're the same organization.

People should know this intellectually at least, but they haven't been faced with the implications.

Analogy: I give a box of old family photos to a cousin. The cousin later needs medical treatment, and sells the photos to a pawn shop. Then the shop goes through the photos looking for the really outrageous ones to sell to third parties. I get really mad. Who do I blame?

Re: 50 Million Myspace Profiles Now Belong to an Ad Targeting Firm

#25

Post by sixtofour » Wed, Jun 29, 2011, 11:57 PM UTC

bproper wrote: post #5

taylorlb wrote: post #4

The headline seems a bit alarmist to me. Is Facebook itself not essentially also an ad targeting firm with millions of profiles?

Facebook sells ads against anonymous user demographics. Specific Media now owns the actual profiles, with everything from sexual orientation to medical history they may contain.

Interesting question: if someone posts medical data privately, like private messages between individuals, then does the owning or acquiring firm have any HIPPA responsibility?

Maybe not, merely for owning it. But what if the owning or acquiring entity decides to sell that data to medical insurance companies, or private investigators. Are there then HIPPA complications? Because now the data is interesting because it has bearing on medical or insurance decisions.