I Didn't Tell Facebook I'm Engaged, So Why Is It Asking About My Fiancé? [View all]

[Julian Englis]

A good example on how Facebook mines data from innocuous posts:

The morning began with my typical browsing routine: email, top-reads RSS news feed, a brief scan of Twitter, then Facebook. I found friends wrapping up at SXSW, some chatter about Kony, pictures of new babies, and then I noticed something out of the ordinary in the right hand column:

how well do you know nick smith.png

It's not the first time I've gotten an engagement ring advertisement. But what's this? Facebook is directly asking me to comment on the nature of my relationship to Nick Smith? That's something new. And weird.

Because, as it turns out, Nick Smith and I are engaged.

We contacted Facebook to ask them about what might have happened. A spokesman got back to us right away. First, the placement of the ad and the question was an accident. That is to say, Facebook wanted to show me the ad and it wanted to ask me the question, but the fact that they showed up at the same time was coincidental. Second, I was probably targeted for an engagement ring ad because of some things I posted about our wedding or on the basis that I'm a woman of marrying age. Third, Facebook's spokesman said that my answer to the question about Nick was just for Facebook's social graph, not for advertisers.

More here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/i-didnt-tell-facebook-im-engaged-so-why-is-it-asking-about-my-fianc/254479/