Facebook doesn’t sell user data. That’s not how Facebook makes money.
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How does Facebook make money? Despite popular belief, FB makes money by keeping identifiable user data to themselves.
What’s considered identifiable user data? Your name, pictures, videos, address, phone numbers, emails, any contact info, or any identifiable info of their friends. For FB to make the most amount of money, it is in FB’s best interest to NOT sell any of this data to advertisers.
By keeping our user data private, FB becomes the “black box” middleman between Coca-Cola and it’s users.
Facebook makes more money by NOT selling its users’ data.
Let’s say Coca-Cola wanted to advertise their new “Gen-X Coke” to a bunch of middle-aged people in the US...
Facebook does NOT sell the user data of all middle aged FB users to Coca-Cola for some amount of money...
Instead, Facebook asks Coca-Cola to send FB the commercial/ad for “Gen-X Coke”.
From there, without letting Coca-Cola see any of FB user data, FB will put the “Gen-X Coke” Ad on the News Feeds of middle aged users in the US, which is the audience that Coca-Cola is interested in showing this product to.
Keep in mind, Coca-Cola cannot see any identifiable user data up to this point.
Coca-Cola can’t see the names, profile pictures, contact info, or any identifiable information about anyone who is seeing their “Gen-X Coke” ad or of their friends. It is in Facebook’s best business interest to NEVER share this user data. Why?
The next time Coca-Cola wants to show an ad to middle aged people in the US, Coca-Cola will need to reach out to FB again, because Coca-Cola can’t reach out to all the middle aged people in the US, because FB didn’t sell that data to them.
So because Coca-Cola doesn’t have any identifiable user data of the people who didn’t like, comment, open, or share the “Gen-X Coke” ad, they need to create another commercial/Ad and post it again to FB, in the hopes of getting more users to interact with their ad.
This system, rather than selling user data, works to make way more money for Facebook.
Facebook, (without letting Coca-Cola see any identifiable user data) charges Coca-Cola a few dollars for every time a Facebook user clicks/views the “Gen-X Coke” ad.
Facebook is not in the business of selling their data because it would leave Facebook with no leverage over advertisers. It’s bad for Facebook’s business to have a data leak.
“But what if I don’t believe Facebook when they say they care about me and my privacy?”...
Think about it... even if FB didn’t care about its users’ privacy at all and instead FB just cared about making money, they would STILL work tirelessly to keep user data private, they would STILL never sell identifiable user data to other companies.
Because it would hurt Facebook’s business if they did so.
The problem is that people don’t read/trust the explanations FB gives about its business practices, and other sources such as CNN, Fox News, etc don’t make FB’s business model clear to people, even though all these media outlets know very clearly that FB does NOT sell user data.
I’m not sure why the media doesn’t make this clear to their viewers, but hopefully this thread will help you understand part of how Facebook‘s business model works.
TL;DR
FB doesn’t sell access to user’s personal info. FB sells targeted ad slots, just like TV networks do, but with more accuracy.
The lack of clarity is making people conflate targeted ads, with selling user’s personal info. The latter of which FB doesn’t do.
FB doesn’t sell access to user’s personal info. FB sells targeted ad slots, just like TV networks do, but with more accuracy.
The lack of clarity is making people conflate targeted ads, with selling user’s personal info. The latter of which FB doesn’t do.
