Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Facebook Is Using You

Lori Andrews is a law professor at Chicago-Kent College Of Law. She has written an article titled
'' Facebook Is Using You". In the article she discusses the truth of how Facebook makes profit. The article states '' Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details — like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment — and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users.'' This statement explains how our 'free' Facebook account makes Facebook so wealthy. The article then states ''Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year.....Yet Facebook’s inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others.'' Facebook isn't the only one selling data there are other companies that support this seeling trend such as Google, Yahoo, Twitter and many other social networks. Although sometimes the advertisements are useful they can also be harmful. According to the article, ''The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down''.

When I first read this article I was seldomly surprised although I had a clue that they were doing these things. I already knew that once something was put on the internet that it would always be there. The fact that they're selling people's private business is very wrong and it shouldn't be allowed. So you should always be aware that the internet is not a safe place and that nothings is ever sacred on the web. Anyone can access information that you post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/facebook-is-using-you.html?pagewanted=all