Businesses who rely on audience targeting when running on ads on Facebook will find greater restrictions in place as Facebook races to respond to the data privacy case involving Cambridge Analytica. As of yesterday, The Social Network removed third-party data providers (Partner Categories) from its targeting options.
This step is one of many Facebook has taken over the past two weeks in an effort to gain a better grasp on protecting private data, including:
- Removing Partner Categories (third-party data providers)
- Updating privacy controls
- Stopping new bot and app approvals
- Auditing previously approved apps
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, has spoken out about the situation on his Facebook account:
We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it.
Sources: The Verge, Social Media Today
