Facebook wants to know what you’re watching
Let’s face it, we use our smart phones for just about everything, including watching television.
This fall, TV ratings giant Nielsen and Facebook will join forces to follow what we watch on our mobile devices.
Dorie Clark teaches corporate and personal branding at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She says the new tracking system is a “necessary evolution.”
“People are consuming far more video on their smart phones, on their I-Pads,” says Clark. “And if we want to make smart decisions about how to allocate marketing dollars, we need to know what they’re watching and where.”
But there could be privacy concerns.
A Facebook spokesperson says the new system can’t be used to identify individuals. Even though Facebook and Nielsen announced the partnership last year, recent controversy over Facebook manipulating content to influence users’ emotions as part of a survey worries privacy advocates.
Jeff Chester, Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy, for example.
“It’s just one piece of a much more disturbing picture that’s emerging as Facebook links with these powerful market research companies to understand what we do and when we do it,” says Chester.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
