More Facebook Privacy Woes: Gay Users Outed To Advertisers. Facebook’s privacy problems continue this week after researchers discovered that Facebook may inadvertently be outing gay users to its advertisers.
Saikat Guha from Microsoft and Bin Cheng and Paul Francis from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems set out to study the challenges in targeted advertising systems (PDF) online, but found that advertisers can ferret out gay users from straight users just by looking at who’s clicking — even when that sexual preference is hidden. The team set up profiles for straight men, straight women, a gay man, and a lesbian to see how the ads differed between the different types of users.
The TWiT Netcast Network with Leo Laporte. How Targeted Advertising On Facebook Could Be Privacy Risk. If a gay person is out on Facebook, does that mean they are out in the wider world?
Not exactly but targeted advertising means the boundaries are more porous than you might assume. A recent post by security researcher Christopher Soghoian (hat tip to Gawker for the link) raises an interesting point about how Facebook advertising is targeted. Facebook uses demographic data to target its ads, which can include any information on your profile, even if it’s not public. That might include if you have ticked the “interested in men/women” box. Is Facebook Outing Gay Users to Advertisers?