The New York Times is one of the world's most respected news organizations and one of the most popular destinations for news on the Internet. However, I was dismayed to read in The New York Times that it may strike a deal to house some of its content inside Facebook.
This is a very troubling development for not just the media landscape but also for the freedom of thought and expression. The ramifications of this potential deal will erode the privacy of The New York Times' readers and it will enable data brokers and their clients to create richer profiles of those who read the paper via Facebook due to Facebook's troubling deal with multiple data brokers.
When a New York Times reader utilizes Facebook to access articles, this information will be sent to Facebook's data broker partners who will insert this content into a user's digital dossier. This data may be utilized by banks, insurance companies, employers, etc... to discriminate against people for reading about certain topics. For example, when someone reads a lot of articles about their race, sexual orientation, health issue, religion, etc.. this data will be tracked and a data broker may provide it to one of their clients who may utilize it to decide on whether a reader is a good fit for a job.
While ad networks and other digital tracking platforms already combine every digital morsel about users they can find, being able to track users from their personal Facebook account creates a new level of data purity that from a privacy standpoint is very troubling. I don't want data brokers to be able to track everything that I read on The New York Times and combine that information with other personal characteristics about myself.
Due to Facebook's troubling privacy policy and practices, I do not utilize it for personal communications and I have no plans on doing so in the future. I urge The New York Times and others who may be thinking about hosting their content on Facebook to think about these important privacy issues before finalizing any deal that may harm their users' in unanticipated ways.
Copyright 2015 by The Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
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