IS FACEBOOK OUTING GAY USERS?

Researchers from Microsoft and Germany's Max Planck Institute wanted to see if Facebook targeted ads based on sexuality, so they created six fake profiles: two straight men, two straight women, a gay man and a lesbian. They found that the ads displayed on the gay man's profile differed substantially from those on the straight one. This isn't surprising, since a gay bar doesn't want to place its ads on the profiles of straight men. But many ads targeted exclusively to gay men had nothing to do with, and made no mention of, their sexuality—for example, one ad hawked a Florida nursing school. (Half of ads targeted to gay men didn't mention the word "gay" in the text.)

The paper explains why this is a concern:
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).

Cookies and IP addresses aside, let's say you click on that ad for the nursing school that targeted its advertising only to gay men. You fill out an application and mention that you saw their ad on Facebook. The school now knows you're a man who is interested in men, even if you've hidden your sexual preference using Facebook's privacy settings.

Of course, if you're comfortable enough to put it on your Facebook profile, you're probably OK with some people knowing you're gay. But whereas Facebook's privacy settings allow you to choose who can see your sexual preference, you have no control over what information Facebook uses to target advertising. Facebook's privacy policy states that it can even use "information you may have decided not to show other users (such as your birth year or other sensitive personal information or preferences) to select the appropriate audience for... advertisements." Anything you put on your profile is fair game.

Facebook's company line is that it doesn't shares your personal information with advertisers, and the only information it uses to target ads is anonymous. But coming on the heels of revelations that Facebook leaked user information to advertisers through third-party apps, this latest snafu underscores how nearly impossible it is for Facebook to both profit from your personal information and to guarantee it will never be shared without your permission. [Slight Paranoia]