the massooleh commblog

Facebook is currently under fire from the F.T.C. for their privacy policy, and Google is being sued from multiple parties for “wiretapping”: scanning content in emails and matching them to appropriate ads.

When organizations like Facebook and Twitter release IPOs, one of the first questions stockholders ask is how they can generate revenue from advertising. The truth is that based on the nature of the services these companies provide, they have unprecedented means of targeting and advertising to consumers; in fact, the databases of consumer behaviour information owned by companies like Google and Facebook are so vast that they have intimidated two of the largest international advertising companies in the world into a merger, just to keep up. Privacy regulations are the only thing holding them back from their true potential.

Companies usually argue that the regulation laws are stuck in the past and need to adapt to the rapidly changing internet culture, and to a certain extent, they have a point. There is a certain level of shared cultural understanding that anything you post online, no matter what your personal privacy settings, is fairly visible and accessible. Why shouldn’t companies have the same amount of access to your account that a complete stranger would? Personally tailored ads would not only largely benefit firms, but consumers as well.