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At this point, it's well-known that Facebook is as much an advertising company as it is a social network. The company is probably second only to Google in the data it collects on users, but the info we all share on the Facebook site just isn't enough. A report from ProPublica published this week digs into the vast network of third-party data that Facebook can purchase to fill out what it knows about its users. The fact that Facebook is buying data on its users isn't new -- the company first signed a deal with data broker Datalogix in 2012 -- but ProPublica's report nonetheless contains a lot of info on the visibility Facebook may have into your life.
Currently, Facebook works with six data partners in the US: Acxiom, Epsilon, Experian, Oracle Data Cloud, TransUnion and WPP. For the most part, these providers deal in financial info; ProPublica notes that the categories coming from these sources include things like "total liquid investible assets $1-$24,999," "People in households that have an estimated household income of between $100K and $125K and "Individuals that are frequent transactor at lower cost department or dollar stores." Specifically, the report notes that this data is focused on Facebook users' offline behavior, not just what they do online.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/30/facebook-buys-data-on-users-offline-habits-for-better-ads/
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:23PM
Facebook should already know everything about everybody, even most of the ones who won't open an account. If they are out buying data they have obviously failed in their core mission, to be the most obnoxiously snooping assholes on the Internet.
Google's Evil(tm) plan to only hire really smart people appears to have been the winning move.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Tuesday January 03 2017, @04:44PM
When the war starts, farcebook wants to be in front of goggles to profit. Can't let the competition get ahead. The mighty dollar is more important than moral, ethics, fairness or justice. And when the connected generation is on the political path, no time awaste for a good Hoover style pinch to squeeze more profits.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 03 2017, @05:28PM
to profit
I wonder how they intend to do that.
My observations are FB use is very power law in that virtually everyone logs in once per year and virtually no one logs in every day.
The stats of the whale users are not as yummy as the linked article implies, lots of lonely cat ladies, young women with no money (no one under 18 uses FB at all as near as I can tell WRT my kids and their friends and their conversations), and stay at home moms looking for adult companionship in any form. Oh and lonely single guys who STILL in 2017 check into every bar or restaurant they visit on the off chance that someone 3000 miles away gives a F or the single ladies there will notice them more than a guy who doesn't check in.
Their revenue stream is a lot of hand wave "in the future we're gonna be trillionaires" but their actual future looks a lot more like myspace or pets.com
I mean they're not completely worthless nor will they be shut completely down. They'll be able to sell diapers to that former coworker SAHM I know who posts to FB a minimum of 30 times per day. And my wife's got this entrepreneur friend who thinks the world really wants to see a minimum of middle aged mom-spirationals ten shitposts per day minimum. The whales should be able to keep them afloat, myspace style, for quite awhile.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 03 2017, @10:19PM
My observations are FB use is very power law in that virtually everyone logs in once per year and virtually no one logs in every day.
Great. Thanks for sharing your observations. Facebook's observations [fb.com] said they had 1.18 BILLION daily active users for September 2016 and 1.79 BILLION monthly active users. According to other reports [venturebeat.com], roughly 2/3 of Facebook users are active on a daily basis.
Now, Facebook is self-reporting these figures, so maybe they're exaggerated a bit. But I'm pretty sure that "virtually no one logs in every day" is probably a false statement. Even if only 10% of Facebook's claimed numbers are correct, that would still be over a hundred million users, not "virtually no one."
(By the way, I'm no fan of Facebook. Finding stats this big just makes me somewhat depressed.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03 2017, @11:09PM
I'm pretty sure that "virtually no one logs in every day" is probably a false statement.
As if just making shit up isn't VLM's standard operating procedure.
Why does anyone take his vacant lying & mendacity seriously?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:03PM
I'm curious how they account for things like apps checking to see if there's anything to notify. There are also the "likes for sale" spam accounts. Technically those are daily uses, if your salary depends on large numbers of daily uses, yet are simultaneously not people logging in.
I googled around and working the opposite direction by asking end users their opinion of themselves (always a minefield)
http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/ [pewinternet.org]
Looks like I was off by a percent or two in that of their likely distorted sample population (distorted enough to matter? probably not, but who knows?) 86% of adults are online in some form, of which 79% of them have a FB account, of which 76% of FB account holders self report they use it daily, although I wonder about that, leading to a multiplication of about 51%.
I would theorize that not seeing my coworkers or family members posting or lurking anymore MIGHT imply behavior changes more than total usage. Perhaps with smartphones I'm the only guy in the bathroom stalls NOT lurking facebook. Or lurking FB is something people do in bed to fall asleep whereas they used to read books, and I still read books. If this theory is correct I should be able to turn off adblocking and see plenty of ads for sleeping pills and toilet paper, but... Of course maybe FB knows very well that I'm not literally shitposting and not lurking in bed before I sleep in which case it would make sense if I'm the only American NOT getting FB ads and promoted posts for sleeping pills and toilet paper.