Facebook is a site that most of us visit everyday for social purposes. Many of us love to use Facebook because of the many things it offers us, at zero cost! So some people might wonder how Facebook makes money because it does not directly sell us any specific product. Actually, Facebook is actually a huge marketing operation. What Facebook does is it collects data about our preferences, likes and interests. So Facebook could be compared to a big data warehouse, possibly a MkIS. With all this data Facebook collects, Facebook could execute data mining on this data to find social trends and what each user specifically likes. This is the information that Facebook uses to market specific ads to us, such as the ads we see on the side bar. Furthermore, with this huge database, maybe it would be possible for Facebook to allow companies to view this data for marketing research, which could potentially benefit us, users, because companies could produce more of what we see as valuable. However, if Facebook were to allow companies access to this data, some users might be resistant to this idea. Which is where a ethical problem arises, is it okay for Facebook to sell your personal information.
I personally do not mind allowing big companies access to the information I place on Facebook. And by allowing companies access to my likes and interests, it could possibly allow them to make better value products for us, as they will have a better understanding of our wants.