The “Like” Trap

Did you know that by Liking any Facebook link you have likely befallen into a privacy breach?

That’s right. Few months ago, I started my own page for my company, which have gathered traction from our Facebook community. The Facebook page has insights options where you have option to see what are the key statistics in your page. What interests me is the people area. It tells you where exactly are the likers, what is their gender etc. See some screenshots below.

The above statistics is nothing worrisome, true it only tells you about Gender, Age and Location. As a page owner myself, I love this functionality, you now have access to a group of people whom you can advertise your product for free but what bothers me a lot is the fact that since the moment that you become a liker of a page, Facebook is now able to do target marketing for you.

Consider below our Facebook engagement for the past 28 days, the number is growing exponentially and the reason behind that is once people begin to like your page, it creates a direct network effect that will start advertising the product to the people within the network.

Again, it sounds very good for a page owner such as myself because my Advertising cost as my page likers increase is going down (Negative correlation of he numbers of likes and Advertising costs).

However, as a Facebook consumer myself, it also makes me feel worried how far can this phenomena grow in the context of Data Privacy.

One of the hot news right now is the fact that EU data Privacy has becoming getting serious about Facebook’s Privacy Policy  One of the key arguments about this movement is the fact that Facebook is not only tracking us within the realm of our Facebook consumption but is also tracking us in other websites the uses the “Like” button, Facebook Log-in Functionality and the advertising resources. Most European authorities have begun to Question Facebook about this.

Some of the proofs from my page statistics have indeed proven that Facebook can track not only the data I have mentioned above but even behavior.

For me this sounds like having a PC recording device in your computer while you are doing your Facebook. All these insights then become a part of the consumption of the Advertiser who pays Facebook lots of money. This to me becomes very alarming because, our Private data is traded for a monetary term. The fact that Facebook is monetizing our Data is a big deal especially in the context of data Privacy.

The other information that I found interesting as an advertiser is the Impression. Quite interestingly below, the Paid impression is very high versus the organic/non paid subscription is low. And why is that? Very simple, Facebook employs their algorithm, of showing our Information to the Likely audience when you are advertising and showing it to general audience when not paying. Of course the One that Pays gets better results and this is one of the reason how Facebook still has the business.

Once again, as Facebook consumers the key here is for us to be aware that hitting the Like button has to be a conscious decision and not just an impulsive behaviour because you like the page and you like what it shows. Keep in mind the trade offs and the impact of your “Data security” and how is being monetised by Facebook.