The Product Is You: How Facebook Uses Data

Previously in this series, I talked about what I discovered when I dug into the “dirt” that Facebook collected from me – revealing not Pandora’s box, but a treasure trove.

Now, I want to take a moment to discuss how Facebook’s business model works: which is that their product is you.

Let’s take a look.

The Information Age

Facebook is famously free to use.  When Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and Founder, was asked a few days ago how this was possible, his response was succinct:

“Senator, we sell ads.”

Essentially, Facebook’s business model means that the users are not the customers, we’re the products.  And the people who are buying from Facebook are and have always been advertisers who want to get their products in front of our eyes.

This is true as well for many sites – Google, YouTube, even Patheos – a good chunk of what you use on the internet earns its revenue by putting up virtual billboards.

However, in order to be effective at selling products, companies are interested in market research.  Basically, as The Music Man taught us, you have to know the territory.

Market research is certainly on my mind as I run my own companies.  For example, back in Massachusetts I ran a summer Shakespeare program for adolescents and young adults from 2006-2012.  One year, we put on Much Ado About Nothing and, for various reasons, it tanked.  Part of the reason was that although my company cornered the market on Shakespeare in our area, our audience really only wanted Shakespeare’s greatest hits.  His star material.

Realizing this data about our audience’s likes and dislikes, the following year we trotted out Romeo and Juliet and had a hit.

So it is with Facebook.  But what, then, is the controversy?

The Virtual Barista

Some people are upset, and understandably so, that their information is being used to curate advertisements towards them.  But I want to suggest a shift in thought to you:

Imagine, if you will, that rather than hiding in your room and going on the internet, that every time you use the internet it’s like stepping outside your front door.

As I wrote elsewhere, the internet is the new public square.  Which means that even if you’re just going to sip some coffee and stare at the people, people can stare back at you.  And the coffee guy will recognize you and start reaching for the cream and sugar before you even arrive.  And that person you thought didn’t notice you is absolutely staring at your clothes.  And the people who sit around you, quietly sipping their own coffees, haven’t lost their ability to hear whatever you mumble to yourself.

Going on the internet is not privacy, it’s where the people live.

Now imagine that Facebook is everyone’s favorite coffeeshop.  When you first come in, they tell you that they will give you free coffee, but in exchange they’re going to tell the people who provide them with coffee what everyone’s drinking.  Including you.  You can shush the barista when he tries to tell you this, but these are the rules of drinking at this shop.

The trouble that Facebook has gotten itself into, however, may be akin to not merely passing on this information to legitimate vendors, but also allowing in literal Russian spies as waiters to sway your metaphorical coffee-buying choice, or possibly not allowing in some vendors with Christian or right-wing figurative coffee, and certainly giving away your coffee buying decisions to some unscrupulous third parties who are now, in our imagination, pulling up a chair and chatting with you over your coffee that you hadn’t really intended to buy.

Essentially, the question is one of curation.

The business model is the business model.  But have the people at Facebook been curating their business partners well?  Or have they truly sold us out?

I Sold You, And You Sold Me

Unfortunately, it seems that little will be changing in the near future.  Facebook is the public market, and people have always gravitated towards communication with each other.

Since Facebook functions as such a useful tool in so many arenas, it’s unlikely that policies will be forced to change due to a mass exodus from the site.  Even more than being ubiquitous, Facebook is just too helpful.

Even more unfortunately, it looks as though the folks on Capitol Hill don’t quite know what change they’re asking for from Facebook.  But in the meantime, you can protect your privacy first by some of the following steps:

• Only supply to Facebook information you’re willing or unashamed to share.
• Lurking is not privacy.  It’s just sitting in public, pretending you’re invisible.  You’re not.
• Don’t click on third party links, especially personality tests, etc., which are generally shady data collecting streams.
• If you do allow another site, device or app to link through Facebook, do so judiciously, and with the knowledge that you are allowing all these sites to sync your data together.
• Know how to use the privacy settings on Facebook.  They’re easier than you think.
• Don’t just accept any friend request.  Vet them by looking at their page and mutual friends first.
• Read the user agreement.  Slowly.

Facebook has certainly been a great blessing to me in my life, and I hope that it continues to be a helpful tool for those of you who use it as well.

But just as with anything, it’s helpful to know how something works so that you can use the tool, rather than the tool that’s being used.