Facebook has announced that it will restrict the amount of personal data of its users that advertisers can access. Once again, we are facing a measure of containment in the face of the general malaise caused by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has made users more aware of the large amount of data that Facebook manages about them.
The company of Zuckerberg has just announced that it will end its ‘Partner Categories’ function launched in 2013, and with which Facebook offered data from third-party intermediaries to combine them with their own and have more monetizable information. These changes will be applied progressively during the next six months.
From Facebook they have confirmed to media like TechCrunch that the measure is permanent. This will affect the so-called data brokers such as Acxiom Corp or Oracle Data Cloud, formerly known as DataLogix, which are dedicated to collecting user information on the Internet and then offering it to advertisers. In this way, for example, specific advertising could be sent to buyers of specific products.
“We want advertisers to know that we will close ‘Partner Categories.” This product allows third-party data providers to offer their orientation directly on Facebook, “said Graham Mudd, director of product marketing at Facebook. “While this is a common practice in the industry, we believe that this step, which will end in the next six months, will help improve the privacy of people on Facebook.”
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One more measure in the face of the crisis
Facebook is going through some of the worst moments of its history after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has been followed by an awareness campaign about the way in which you obtain your data, including your call history and SMS. This is causing sharp falls in the stock market, and that personalities like Elon Musk or the co-founder of WhatsApp join the campaign to delete their accounts from the social network.
Given this situation, Zuckerberg’s are not left with anything other than to start taking measures like the one announced today. Also, yesterday we also knew that they were going to postpone the presentation of an intelligent speaker that they are still planning to launch during this year. To all this we must add that Zuckerberg will have to appear at the US Congress to give explanations, and that several users have sued the company.
Today’s measure is clearly aimed at trying to wash the image of Facebook by transmitting the feeling that they care about privacy, although it remains to be seen to what extent it will be effective. Nor would it be surprising that in the coming days more news were announced in this same direction.
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