[46Bit]

This is a complete non-story. Every Facebook profile is owned by an ad firm. Every Gmail account is owned by an ad firm. Every + account is owned by an ad firm. Every Yahoo Mail account is owned by a bit of an ad firm - ditto for Live. Generally, every free service is selling you and your time. This really shouldn't be surprising.

[bproper]

That is completely wrong.

People who buy ads against Facebook and Google profiles don't get to see specific info about the users they are targeting.

In this case the firm doing the targeting is also the firm that can see all the profile data.

[rmaccloy]

Facebook and Google both do their own targeting (obviously.) Google allows access to some data for 3rd-party firms via RTB. Neither pass on PII (or really any non-aggregate) data to advertisers, AFAIK, I'd be surprised if Specific did either.

Google and Facebook both have a consumer-facing presence so you think of them as being more accountable, but they're both advertising businesses, no doubt.

[46Bit]

No, it's completely right. If you're selling yourself to get free stuff, you should expect no privacy. I'm a 'fan' of privacy so to speak, but that's a basic fact which I don't see as something that can or perhaps even should be changed.

That there's usually a middleman is something of a random detail. You don't look through millions of profiles and pick this ad for this person. You group people by common characteristics and then match ads to those. That a different advertising firm is going to suddenly do something so much scarier sounds more like science fiction than fact.

[chollida1]

> That is completely wrong.

I agree with you but my first reading of the OP lead me to believe that she/he meant that Google and Facebook are advertising firms.

[drivingmenuts]

Google is an advertising firm.

Admittedly, not as annoying as all the rest, but still, their business is advertising.

[fleitz]

Interesting, when I type "chrome" into Google I see ads for Google from Google and my email address (also from Google) in the top corner. I also frequently receive ads from Google regarding getting an AdWords account.

[mturmon]

Agreed, but the novelty here is that the personal information was given to one organization, but is now owned in toto by another organization.

It's different than Google's insight into your buying interests from Gmail, because they're the same organization.

People should know this intellectually at least, but they haven't been faced with the implications.

Analogy: I give a box of old family photos to a cousin. The cousin later needs medical treatment, and sells the photos to a pawn shop. Then the shop goes through the photos looking for the really outrageous ones to sell to third parties. I get really mad. Who do I blame?