How Facebook is Selling You to Advertisers

Facebook is giving advertisers a chance to find more people like their target consumers on the social network.

Facebook released "Lookalike Audiences" this week, which will let marketers reach those similar to their Custom Audiences databases, according to Mashable. Custom Audiences lets advertisers use data like email addresses, phone numbers and user IDs to create their marketing maneuvers on Facebook. Lookalike Audiences would let them find other Facebook users that look a lot like their Custom Audiences, also known as targeted consumers. And if they buy an ad, they can get a glimpse of the lookalike audience and use it.

That means that the social network is now one big marketer's dream.

Facebook states that it won't share personal information with advertisers, although it would have to because it uses email addresses, phone numbers and user IDs, remember?

Sure, it makes sense for advertisers to find people similar to those who liked or used their product, but are users happy with being part of a marketing experiment? We're all aware that social networks fail when the bad outweighs the good, so when does that start happening for most people on Facebook? When users can't see any news from friends on their newsfeed because it's clogged by ads might be the tipping point.
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