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A few years ago I created an online business for serious cyclists and runners. Targeted Facebook ads enabled me to find customers for a few pennies each - I don't think I could have found customers any other way (apart from the trying to get 'free' ads via blogs/news/viral tweets etc).

Targeted ads are the only way that small, new, local, or just poor companies can do advertising.

It's a bit scary seeing what sites show facebook you've been to: https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/ But if this is the price to pay to see quality ads within FB then so be it.

What I think is wrong, is then for facebook (or other apps) to sell, or leak that data in enough detail to match to our identity where it can be used for other purposes.

2 comments

> What I think is wrong, is then for facebook (or other apps) to sell, or leak that data in enough detail to match to our identity where it can be used for other purposes.

That's what everyone thinks is wrong. FB (and Google, and LI, etc) already tell you they won't use your data for other than ad purposes and that they won't resell your data as PII. The problem is

a) policing it

b) in case of inadvertent disclosure, there's no remedy. privacy compromises are permanent.

To date, it's a tradeoff we (society) have been willing to take.

You don’t need targeted advertising to achieve that. You don’t need FB, Google, and a thousand other lesser-known companies tracking every step you make in order to know that you might be interested in cycling. Instead you, as a small advertiser, would target the right context and would only show your ads in articles specifically-dedicated to cycling or whatever other niche you are after.

But there aren't sites/publications that are niche enough. Female runners over 50? Interested in Italian food in Denver?

Targeted ads are a response to the poor results from site/content specific ads

Sure, there are niche categories that would be hard to get. But for your two specific examples you could use those simple sets of criteria:

1. Target specific articles with advice for older runners in running publications. 2. Target Italian recipes in cooking websites only for users located in Denver.

You don’t need to do those things manually, it can be automated. Sure, it might not deliver the scale that FB and Google are promising, but to say that it’s impossible to do contextually is not accurate.

Use Google Search ads to capture all direct intent.

> 1. Target specific articles with advice for older runners in running publications.

Who reads running publications these days? Unless you meant online blogs etc, in which case:

> 2. Target Italian recipes in cooking websites only for users located in Denver.

That is targeted advertising, IIUC. You are targeting users based on their geolocation, which should be banned as per the article.

Also this would be more expensive in both time and cost