Facebook advertisers must soon provide more information for user consent

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Facebook continues to change its advertising requirements following its many controversies. The latest rules change focuses on accountability and transparency. Specifically, the change targets Custom Audiences, a tool that helps advertisers reach audiences more likely to have a relationship with their business.

According to the new rules, Facebook advertisers will have to declare whether contact info uploaded for ad targeting was collected with proper user consent by them, one of their partners, or both. Users will be able to see this info if they opt to block future ads from that business.

As TechCrunch explains,

Companies can only share Custom Audiences info with partners like ad agencies if they’re formally connected through Facebook’s business manager tool. And Facebook will start to show advertisers reminders that they need consent for contact info ad targeting and force all users connected to an ad account to confirm these terms.

This sounds like a reasonable plan until you realize Facebook isn’t actually going to check the information for compliance. As TechCrunch concludes:

That means Facebook is trusting advertisers to tell the truth about consent for targeting… despite them having a massive financial incentive to bend or break those rules. Today’s update will give Facebook more plausible deniability in the event of a scandal, and it might deter misuse. But Facebook is stopping short of doing anything to actually prevent non-consensual ad targeting.

Increasingly, I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what Facebook says or does, there’s no way it can guarantee that personal data will be secure. Because of this, I believe Facebook’s best course of action would be to offer ad-free subscriptions for users.

Will Facebook do this? Don’t bet on it. What do you think about the new rules for Facebook advertisers? Let us know in the comments.

For other crazy Facebook news, see:

• Facebook admits to tracking our mouse movement for the sake of “personalized content”
• Somehow, Facebook both collects, and doesn’t collect, data from non-users
• Facebook doesn’t want ‘bad’ companies advertising on their platform.

Bryan M. Wolfe

Bryan considers himself a well-rounded techie, having written articles for MakeUseOf, KnowTechie, AppAdvice, iDownload Blog. When he's not writing, he's being a single dad and rooting for his alma mater, Penn State, or cheering on the Patriots.