Free social media demands advertising, Facebook in the clear

The European Union is not happy with Facebook using its users' information to sell to advertisers. The European Commission's new directive, which is set to be introduced in January, will ban targeted advertising unless users specifically allow it. The amount of user data that Facebook is able to provide its affiliates with is quite startling, and it seems as though the sharing of this amount of personal, albeit watered down, information would be quite troubling to the millions of people using the site. It is the job of governing agencies to protect the people it represents, so it makes sense that the EU wants to ensure that its citizens' privacy is respected.

The EU must consider the value of a free social networking site before they force it to change its business model. Facebook, Inc. has a good deal of influence on the international community. With more than 800 million users, Facebook not only has the power to connect a large number of the world's people to each other, but also to the many products advertisers are eager to promote. Many users willingly deposit large amounts of personal information, which causes the site to function as a virtual goldmine for companies looking to promote their products to specific audiences. It makes sense that Facebook takes advantage of the unique business opportunities their information-rich website provides.

Facebook is right in providing its advertising partners with an amount of its users' data. When signing up for Facebook, all users are required to agree to let the site use their information, thereby giving away a good amount of control over the details that they enter into the site. Facebook provides its users with a comprehensive overview of the ways in which it utilizes their information, even allowing them to test out the software that its ad partners use to help create their advertisements.

If the EU were to force Facebook to change the way it sells advertisements, users probably would not notice much of a difference in the way the site functions. Because Facebook finances its operations by selling ads, users would still see plenty of advertisements; they just wouldn't be catered to their specific interests. Advertising would lose its personalization.

As is becoming increasingly apparent, websites that provide users with free content must rely almost entirely on advertising to stay afloat. By selling ads, sites like Pandora and Vevo, along with Facebook, can continue to provide high quality content without charging users. Because site visitors would likely prefer seeing a few ads to paying exorbitant monthly fees, they have become accustomed to the fact that advertising and free websites are irreversibly linked. Although ads may be an annoying product of the consumer culture in which we live, they help enable organizations to provide services for free that they would otherwise be forced to charge for.