Is This The Beginning of Facebook’s Google-Killer?
Facebook Users’ Data Can Now Be Used To Serve Ads Outside Facebook.
This is a really big deal.
Facebook’s terms and policies were updated on Friday to allow them to use users’ data to serve them ads while they are on websites outside of Facebook.
TechCrunch notes that Facebook currently helps Zynga serve ads on their sites. But this is the biggest privacy policy change yet.
If you’re a conspiracy theorist like me that believes that it is only a matter of time before Facebook unleashes an ad network (like I’ve speculated many times before, such as just last week in Ad Age) then you just got more fuel for your fire.
**UPDATE**
And to clarify, as my friend (and former Googler) Ari Paparo states:
@ischafer it could be FB’s AdSense killer, but AdSense remains a very small part of Goog revenue and profit.
— Ari Paparo (@aripap) May 13, 2012
- “Fake Verified” Twitter Accounts Are Fake.
- The Entire Twitter Ad Platform in 30 Minutes: My OMMA Social Internet Week Presentation.
Facebook comments:
I think you’re spot on Ian. While Ari has a point re: Google, I think that Facebook would be remiss to not go after the market outside of their kingdom walls. I think social data is very different than search data, but there is certainly money to be made here.
Thanks DH. It’s a very interesting future for Facebook indeed.
Building an ad network would limit the potential scale of an effort like this from Facebook. Why not extend their partnership with Microsoft and build an exclusive social-data component into the AppNexus ecosystem?