Facebook’s Targeted Ads Expand to the Web - The New Yorker

Final paragraph from a timely Internet advertising reality check

"Underlying privacy advocates’ concerns is the general move toward selling ads based on user data. Facebook’s announcement entails a challenge to Google, which already targets some ads on sites around the web, based on what it knows about people from their use of Google Plus and YouTube. Google also personalizes the ads that show up next to search results, based partly on people’s previous searches, and it delivers Gmail ads based partly on the language in its users’ e-mails. As advertisers increasingly seek to target their ads based on personal information, the company that will be most successful will inevitably be the one that can gather the most information about its users."

Facebook’s Targeted Ads Expand to the Web - The New Yorker