Those ads are targetable by categories determined from private data, but Facebook doesn't give anyone else the data, that's literally why people would purchase ads through their exchange and not through another exchange.
Google has the same model, they don't sell your data, they use your data to match you with advertisers through a fairly opaque interface that lets advertisers reach the categories of people they want to reach, without revealing the data to allowed them to put someone in that category.
Kind of like how your Mom will set you up on a blind date based on what she knows about what both parties want, but doesn't disclose all your information because she doesn't want anyone to be upset with her.
They're not third parties because these API's are protected by user login credentials as near as I can tell. That means you provide your login information, and your device can access your Facebook data, as you expect a client of Facebook to be able to do.
That means all the privacy protections from the "website" are there, you're just not looking at it through a browser, it's an interface provided by the device manufacturer.
Informed consent is simply that -- being able to consent without missing a piece of knowledge.
It may cure nothing. But the fact remains that Facebook acted (and continues to act) in bad faith to the user.
Maybe nothing changes, especially now that users are so deeply attached. Real-time targeted advertising has been around since the early 2000s, but explain to the average tech-illiterate user that their phone can hear when a Tide ad is on television and can serve a Clorox ad in their Instagram feed, and watch how uncomfortable they get.
How much of this could be stopped with informed consent.
Google spent billions to develop the huge data processing systems and algorithms to eventually leave Yelp behind, like a freight train leaves a horse behind.
Yelp missed the industrialization of their industry by machine.
Are we really going to stretch it out that far? That just because Apple is using a small section of some Google infrastructure it means all of the end users aren't "Google free?"
That's ridiculous. I, as an end user, am not signed into any Google account at any time. Just because some encrypted bits are on a server Google owns doesn't make one a user.
They've got an OpenCL SDK for it now, that brings it under the same interface that a lot of folks have been using for the Phi and other many core tech Intel has been pushing for HPC.
It's not really that hard to get rolling at this point.
So, Google pulled down 9.9B in profits last quarter. That means if they've got 88k employees, they could hand out somewhere around an EXTRA $450k to every single employee every year and still be in the green.
Facebook looks roughly the same.
The leverage of a software engineer to produce money is really quite astounding when you get them in large herds.
I'm pretty sure the Bay Area is going to be just fine.
And I frowned at the downvotes for the other comments. Friends, why do we turn into insecure conservative bullies when it comes to femininity? Why accept the implicit normalizing and othering of last century's favorite pronouns?
Releasing that information means those advertisers no longer need Facebook to do the ad targeting. They can then use other exchanges to do targeting without paying Facebook anything.
It is in Facebooks interests to guard that information carefully.
Since they're using it internally to make facebook work, I'd say it's a core product and a lot of engineering efforts are being expended to make the company run better.
It just also happens to be something you can sell to others too.
Since you consider it a core product, what do you estimate the portion of Facebook's revenue comes from this core product in relation to the billions they receive elsewhere.
Those ads are targetable by categories determined from private data, but Facebook doesn't give anyone else the data, that's literally why people would purchase ads through their exchange and not through another exchange.
Google has the same model, they don't sell your data, they use your data to match you with advertisers through a fairly opaque interface that lets advertisers reach the categories of people they want to reach, without revealing the data to allowed them to put someone in that category.
Kind of like how your Mom will set you up on a blind date based on what she knows about what both parties want, but doesn't disclose all your information because she doesn't want anyone to be upset with her.