Facebook likely to receive privacy sanctions from EU over targeted advertising

The behavioural targeting of Facebook's advertising has come under fire from The European Commission, as they plan to implement a Directive next tear to prevent the social network from targeting ads based on user information unless he/she explicitly allows it.

As European Parliament update laws on data protection, which is planned for implementation in early January 2012, if Facebook don't adjust its privacy settings in light of giving users a clear choice whether to share their information for the purpose of advertising, a hefty fine/prosecution could be coming their way.

“I call on service providers – especially social media sites – to be more transparent about how they operate,” Viviane Reding, the vice president of European Commission, told The Telegraph. “Users must know what data is collected and further processed [and] for what purposes.”

Facebook has responded by saying that all data shared is anonymous to advertisers, meaning personal details are not ar risk.  True, you do agree upon sign up; but a) such a situation doesn't require an either-or situation (people may want to use it without behavioural targeted advertisers), and b) even with all of this, users cannot opt out of this particular strand of advertising the same way you can with Google's ads.

As is the same with other parts of Facebook's privacy concerns amongst users, there's no clear section, and things are turned on by default without identifiable permission.

This also comes in the same month as the social network revealing to USA today how they track their 800 million users across the web.

Source: The Telegraph