Facebook companythat has been under fire for a while now, has published another blog post answering some tough questions. This time, Facebook wants to give us information about what advertisers know about us.
As it has repeatedly stated in the past, Facebook emphasizes that it does not sell user data. The company says that what it offers advertisers is “space” on Facebook for advertising, similar to what is done on television, radio or newspapers.
For ad targeting, Facebook said it analyzes people's activity on the social network, including comments, posts, pages they follow, articles they read, personal information they share, etc.
They use information provided by advertisers, such as their customers' email addresses. They also take into account information sent from the websites and apps that users use.
Facebook said it only gives advertisers general information about their ad campaigns. For example, demographics, the number of people who clicked on their ads, whether ads are more popular on mobile or desktop, etc. Facebook says advertisers cannot identify specific users on the network.
As users, people have "some" control over the ads that appear on their screen. It's possible to turn off targeting, but not ads as a whole, for obvious reasons.
“Am I the product?”
Facebook doesn't agree with the common internet belief that the social network is free because people are the product. Instead, the company believes that social media is the product.
“It’s the same as a free search engine, website, or newspaper. The core product is reading the news or finding information – and the ads are there to fund that experience.”
