Facebook outs gay users to advertisers. Dislike.

By Brooke Johnson-

Popular social networking site Facebook has been recently bashed for its lack of transparent user privacy policy and questionable use of the data collected from its members.

The site’s privacy issues, however, are only getting worse…and more specific. Wired.com reports that Facebook may “inadvertently be outing gay users to its advertisers.” 
 
Think your sexual preference is private just because it’s only viewable by the users you allow? Think again. Saikat Guha from Microsoft and Bin Cheng, Paul Francis, and Max Planck from the Institute for Software Systems found that advertisers have the ability to differentiate gay, straight and lesbian users based on their clicking histories on certain ads and profile specifications, says Wired.com.

During an online advertising experiment, the researchers concluded that advertisers target to gay men more strongly than they do straight males or lesbian females. But this is not as problematic for gay Facebookers as is the reason for using unassuming “sexual-orientation neutral” ads, reports Wired.com.

The researchers explain:

“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).”

Thus, the data collected can then be very easily attributed to specific individuals or Facebook user IDs that are embedded in their unique profile URLs. According to Wired.com, Facebook’s official advertiser policy is to keep all data anonymous, however, there does not seem to be any regulation of this rule.

A recent letter from two Congressmen sent to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg (CEO) detailed the issue of user IDs, reports Wired.com, but it is not expected to spark action for change within the Facebook offices anytime in the near future.

Interestingly enough, Facebook has made user-facing efforts to acknowledge and voice their concerns regarding their gay members. Check out Facebook’s “Network for Support” :

“In light of recent tragedies involving youth who have taken their own lives as a result of anti-LGBT bullying, we felt it necessary to form a ‘Network of Support’ to help us effectively address issues faced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community,” the Facebook Safety page reads.

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