Facebook Web Activity Changes Irk Privacy Advocates in Congress, Nonprofits
Facebook plans to use a broader range of user Internet activity to define “interest” categories -- which can determine how ads are served to users -- upset some privacy advocates in Congress and at nonprofit groups. Until now, Facebook has used mostly activity on its own website to categorize users, it said in a Thursday news release (http://bit.ly/1n7Bg2q). “Starting soon in the US, we will also include information from some of the websites and apps you use.” Some lawmakers and industry advocates praised enhanced consumer controls included in the change.
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Advertisers will benefit from being able to target both more inclusive and more specific, categories of users, said Facebook. Users will benefit from receiving more relevant ads and enhanced control over what ads they receive, the company said. The new feature will let users see exactly why they are receiving a particular ad, with the option to remove themselves from that category if they want, Facebook said. While all users will be opted in to the program, a message sent to all Facebook users Thursday gave instructions on opting out through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) online behavioral ad opt-out program (http://bit.ly/1mNJxHA).
The narrative that Facebook is empowering “data decision-making” is “totally disingenuous,” said Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester in a blog post (http://bit.ly/UwBOqM). Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said the change “raises a major privacy red flag,” noting teenagers were not excluded from the practice. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., credited the social network for “allowing consumers to review and edit their individual advertising profiles.” It’s an example other companies should follow, Rockefeller said.
Facebook disputed the characterization that the new practice would mean it was transferring more data to third-party advertisers. While the company will use wider browser history to define its categories, it won’t share the browser history directly with advertisers, a spokesman said. Facebook “has been working with the largest data brokers, including Acxiom and Datalogix, to better hone our data profiles that can be sold to the highest bidder and used by its major advertisers,” said CDD’s Chester. “What it really is doing is grabbing as much of our information as possible, so they can generate revenues from the advertisers that keep the company afloat.”
Prior to rolling out its new feature, Facebook met with the FTC and the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland -- where the firm’s European headquarters are located -- as it does on a regular basis, said a spokesman. Facebook is under a 2011 FTC consent decree lasting 20 years over allegations the company “repeatedly” shared and made public information it told users would be kept private (http://1.usa.gov/1dwNX0x). The company is not required to meet with either data privacy regulator before making privacy changes.
Teens should be protected from the changes, said Markey. The vocal opponent of data brokers has been pushing the Do Not Track Kids Act (S-1700), which he introduced in November (http://1.usa.gov/SRg3R6). The bill would amend the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by requiring user consent to collect information about 13- to 15-year-olds, limiting the types of information that can be collected about teens and creating a mechanism to allow the deletion of publicly available personal information about teens. “It doesn’t matter where teen users are online, Facebook will create detailed digital dossiers without their permission based on what they click,” Markey said. “We need to put rules on the books to ensure teens are protected from being tracked."
Though praising the enhanced user control over ads, Rockefeller “would have preferred that Facebook allowed consumers to opt out altogether from this type of collection,” he said. The DAA opt-out program stops users from receiving targeted ads, not from having the information collected (WID Dec 18 p1). Rockefeller introduced a 2013 bill (S-418) to mandate companies give users the ability to opt out of any tracking (http://1.usa.gov/1qBLzOx). “While the company has long collected this information, using it for advertising purposes may raise new privacy issues,” said Rockefeller, who issued a largely critical 2013 report on data-broker business practices (WID Dec 19 p1). Rockefeller did call Facebook’s most recent privacy update “a laudable change” (http://on.fb.me/1le9SNr). He said the change gave users a “privacy checkup tool” to make it easier to see what their privacy setting was for each aspect of Facebook (WID May 23 p11).