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Facebook users should be used to creepy (12/6) | Email Marketing Advice

Published: Sunday, December 4, 2011

Updated: Monday, December 5, 2011

The application is free, all you have to do is sign up by entering your name, email address, birthday, and gender, and before you know it you are connected with hundreds of "friends." You can now spend countless hours browsing photographs of people you hardly know and have likely never met, reading extremely well composed and insightful messages and status updates while letting everyone know what you had for breakfast (I had oatmeal and coffee).

Now this is where it gets interesting. Facebook takes all this information and paints a picture of you. after a while it has a very good idea of what you like and don't like, and what type of person you are. how wonderful for a marketing team to have such an in-depth profile of its target demographic. Facebook and its advertisers can now target a woman who may have just posted a birth announcement with ads for cribs and other infant related items, probably even related to the gender of the baby.

Facebook also tracks users by web browser cookies. Cookies are small files left behind on a user's computer or device by a website that can then be used to track a user's activity and movement on that particular site. normally sites are only allowed to access cookies that they left behind on the device. so for instance your company or school website would not be able to access another site's cookies on your device, and therefore would not be able to see other sites you have visited. However, when a non Facebook site or page uses Facebook's "Like" function on their own site, Facebook can see that you've visited that particular site, even if you did not click the Like button.

Kind of unsettling, no? Facebook is creeping on you!

Facebook is certainly not doing anything that Google and other popular sites haven't been doing for a long time. there is a difference though, the users of Facebook voluntarily give extremely private details about themselves, significant others, children, family, and pets. You name it, it's out there. it is unlikely most of these users are aware of the potential impact of giving out all this private information. Users need to be educated on the impact of posting this type of information to their accounts, and understand that just because their profile is "private" doesn't mean their data is safe, or inaccessible to others. once you post something out on the Internet, or send an email, it is out there and cannot be taken back.

Facebook has a wealth of information on approximately 800 million people. they must make every effort to protect that information, and not use it in unethical ways. using the information to target users with more suitable ads may not be a bad thing. No matter what, we are going to see ads when we use free applications and software, so isn't it better that we actually see ads that are relevant to us? by the way if you are reading this article online, please take a moment and click the Like button.

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