A report in the New York Times reveals that at least two media companies are tracking the connections between Facebook Friends – all the better to serve up targeted marketing to the friends of folks who are already customers.
33Across and Media6Degrees, are analyzing such connections, and they are not interested in basic friend lists, but in interactions on the sites, taking note when a user visits a friend’s page, sends a video or exchanges an instant message. In turn, they can identify people who are friends with a company’s existing customers, and then advertise to them…
According to Eric Wheeler, the chief executive of 33Across, instead of understanding all these things about people, you could understand who was connected to who – “the reality is, those people are very similar not only in socioeconomic terms, but in terms of what they click and buy, so it’s very valuable.”
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