Facebook might be inadvertently outing its gay users to advertisers, according to a new study.
Researchers have discovered that different targeted advertising is being sent to users’ accounts if they have described themselves as gay or straight.
The discovery could mean that people who wish to keep their sexuality private may be sharing it with advertisers without their knowledge.
The loophole is yet another example of a Facebook privacy breach after it emerged that millions of pieces of personal information were being shared without users’ consent after using popular apps.
A team from Microsoft and Germany's Max Planck Institute created six fake profiles: two straight men, two straight women, a gay man and a lesbian. They wanted to see if Facebook targeted ads based on sexuality, and so the profiles were left otherwise completely the same.
The team then monitored what ads each virtual user was sent over a period of a week.
They found that the ads displayed on the gay man's profile differed substantially from those on the straight one. Many of these adverts were not obviously adverts for services that only gay men would require, and half of them did not mention the word ‘gay’ in the text.
The researchers say that this means people who click on the adverts from their Facebook profile will not know that they were targeted for that ad because of the sexual orientation and so by clicking through on the ad are effectively ‘outing’ themselves.
This means that the advertising firms now know if they are gay even if this aspect of their profile has been hidden from public view.
The researchers write in the paper: ‘The danger with such ads, unlike the gay bar ad where the target demographic is blatantly obvious, is that the user reading the ad text would have no idea that by clicking it he would reveal to the advertiser both his sexual-preference and a unique identifier (cookie, IP address, or email address if he signs up on the advertiser's site).’
The loophole means that any advertisers who collect data such as Facebook IDs could match a person’s sexual preference with their unique ID and their name.
A Facebook spokesman said: 'Our advertising guidelines prohibit advertisers from using user data collected from running an ad on Facebook, including information derived from targeting criteria.
'For example, we explicitly prohibit them from associating that targeting detail with the data collected from the user in forms they fill out, applications they make, or other interactions on their site. We also require that targeting of ads based on a user attribute be directly relevant to the offer in the advertisement.
'We take the privacy of our users very seriously and take immediate action when violations of these policies come to our attention. We don’t provide any personally identifiable information to advertisers and we recommend that people always exercise caution when filling out forms about themselves online.
'We have no evidence that the advertisers mentioned in this study sought to collect information about people using Facebook, but we encourage people to report any advertisements that they suspect may be doing so.'
Last week it emerged that vast amounts of data – including the names of individual members and their online ‘friends’ – were passed to internet advertising firms, with tens of millions of people thought to have been affected.
The leaks were possible even when members had deliberately set their privacy options to the maximum secrecy levels.
The practice violates Facebook’s own rules on data protection and will raise questions about the company’s ability to keep information about its members’ activities secure.
Security experts warned that the details could be used – when combined with other publicly available information – to build up a detailed picture of an individual’s interests, friendship circle and lifestyle.
Around 25 different advertising and data firms were receiving the information, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found.
It was passed to them by firms whose ‘apps’ – games and other features – operate on Facebook and not by the social networking site itself.
Using the data allows advertisers to better target individuals with promotion for specific product.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1322916/Facebook-accidentally-outing-gay-users-advertisers.html#ixzz13CPkIHDe
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