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Business

Facebook to track users’ browser history for ads

By
Kaja Whitehouse
Published June 12, 2014, 10:14 p.m. ET

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is watching you — more closely than ever.

The social networking site on Thursday said it plans to start using information about its users’ Web browsing and app history when deciding which ads to show them.

Under the new system, a user researching prices for a flight to Miami — even outside of Facebook — might then see Facebook ads for restaurants or hotels in Miami Beach.

The risk is that consumers will be turned off by Facebook’s tracking efforts, which could be viewed as an invasion of privacy, watchers warned.

“Facebook seems to have a tin ear when it comes to privacy,” said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. “They continue to make changes and adjustments that many consumers find objectionable.”

Indeed, a spokesman for Digital Advertising Alliance, the trade association that runs an opt-out program for targeted advertisements, said visits to the site were “up quite a bit” on Thursday — suggesting users are concerned in light of the announcement.

Facebook said the change is directed at helping users “see ads that are more relevant to their interests.” But the move is also very clearly directed at boosting Facebook’s already skyrocketing advertising revenue, which grew to $7 billion last year.

“The more targeted the advertising, the better,” said Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst with digital marketing research firm eMarketer. “What advertisers want at the end of the day are advertisements shown to people who will see and love them,” she said.

But Facebook, which has been dinged for violating users’ privacy before, spent the better part of this year getting the announcement just right in an effort to avoid consumer backlash, a person with knowledge of the process told The Post.

Unlike what it did with previous privacy changes — some of which were made with zero warning — the company seemed to take care this time to explain how users who don’t want targeted ads can opt out through the Digital Advertising Alliance.

Facebook also unveiled a service to let users opt out of specific ads they have received, and to ask for more information about why they have been targeted for certain ads to make users feel more in control of the ads they receive.

Facebook was required to undergo privacy inspections every two years for the next 20 years as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in 2011 for deceiving consumers about what info it was sharing.

An FTC spokesman declined to comment on the announcement except to say that “the FTC rigorously enforces its orders.”