Melissa Story
Description: and other stuff you find lying around the coop
When news of the ‘data leak’ Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal hit, I wasn’t the least bit surprised (and also amused that the media dubbed the incident a data leak – it was not a leak, IMO).
A third party used a very powerful advertising tool to sway consumers. Sounds a lot like what so many advertisers do everyday. I’m not convinced that Facebook did anything more than offer a service that was used by some very unethical marketers. As a digital marketing consultant myself, that’s the problem I have with this situation.
So, if marketers aren’t going to be ethical, then consumers have to be smarter. They need to know how marketers target them and they need to be aware that the ads showing up on your newsfeeds and browsers are not there by accident. They are there because the consumer left breadcrumbs on the Internet that effectively tells marketers all about you… and these predictions are surprisingly accurate.
Melissa Story