Salon.com > mobile advertising

How Facebook could blow it

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:45:00 +0000

I received an email from a Facebook public relations person just a little before midnight Wednesday, or about 10 hours after I posted my rant about Facebook mobile advertisements and giant-breasted zombie-stalkers. The spokesperson sought an opportunity to chat about the work Facebook was doing "to improve the controls people have over the ads they see on mobile."

So we chatted. The big news: Facebook promises that within just a couple of weeks mobile users will get new controls that will allow us to block specific advertisers. These controls will be similar to those that currently exist for the desktop Facebook experience. Individual Facebook users can decide for themselves how excited they are by this pledge. As I wrote on Wednesday, Facebook's track record on the desktop advertising experience leaves something to be desired. (To be fair, Facebook's spokeperson acknowledged that the company's ad-delivery algorithms are not "perfect.")

Facebook is blowing it

Wed, 01 May 2013 20:24:00 +0000

While waiting for my coffee to brew this morning, I checked my Facebook News Feed on my iPhone. But instead of amusing updates from friends and family, in the space of just a few flicks of my thumb, I was assaulted by not one, not two, but three different advertisements for online dating sites. Worst of all, there she was, again! That giant-breasted zombie stalker from Mate1.com who has been chasing me across Facebook for years!

I know she's not real. I know she's just an advertisement. But I'm still terrified of that woman. I have nightmares of getting crushed by her mammary glands, squeezed to death like a boa constrictor kills a wild pig. I don't ever want to see her again, but no matter how I try, I just can't quit her.

When first we met, in my pre-smartphone days, she flashed her soulless come-hither eyes at me from Facebook's right-hand column. I swiftly learned how to click "hide this ad" and "hide all from Mate1.com." I'm a social media take-charge kind of guy -- tweaking privacy and ad settings comes naturally to me. But then, a couple of years later, not long (and not uncoincidentally) after Facebook's IPO, she invaded my News Feed. Once again, I dutifully clicked "hide this ad" and "hide all," albeit this time with a little less faith in the honorable intentions of Facebook's ad-targeting algorithms.

FTC to mobile advertisers: Behave!

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:35:00 +0000

I'd love to take credit for the fact that just two weeks after my story on how mobile online advertisers are compiling detailed profiles of us through our smartphone apps, the FTC has released a report stuffed with recommendations as to how mobile platform companies, app developers and advertisers can "improve mobile privacy disclosures." But the truth is the FTC has been focused on the issue for years -- and understandably so, since the cutting edge of privacy is now in our pockets.

First, more than other types of technology, mobile devices are typically personal to an individual, almost always on, and with the user. This can facilitate unprecedented amounts of data collection. The data collected can reveal sensitive information, such as communications with contacts, search queries about health conditions, political interests, and other affiliations, as well as other highly personal information. This data also may be shared with third parties, for example, to send consumers behaviorally targeted advertisements.

Angry Birds, tracking device?

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000

A group of researchers at Carnegie-Mellon had a simple question. When we play a game of Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja on our smartphone, or identify a song's name with Shazam on our tablet, what kind of information do we think we are revealing about ourselves to the outside world? What, in other words, are our privacy expectations?

Almost every app gathers some kind of information -- a unique identification number that belongs only to a specific mobile device, or location data revealing where exactly the app is being used. But connecting that data to the ostensible function of the app can be murky. The CMU researchers created an experiment in which they presented users of the most popular Android apps with the precise information those apps gathered, and then asked for reactions. Were they surprised? Bothered? Complacent?

The answers, says Jason Hong, an associate professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon, had a lot to do with our perception of the app's purpose. For example, participants in the experiment weren't alarmed in the least to learn that Google Maps is a heavy user of location data. Of course it is! The whole point of Google Maps is to help you get from where you are to someplace else. Location data is essential to the task.