If you thought Facebook’s targeted ads were already creepy and intrusive now, just wait until the social network starts tracking your cursor as you cruise around the website.
The Wall Street Journal brings word from Facebook’s main analytics chief that the social network wants to improve the appropriateness of apps received by monitoring how you move your mouse and trackpad.
Facebook could monitor users’ hover time over ads currently appearing on their pages, allowing the company to determine which are resonating with the audience and which are not, Ken Rudin told the WSJ.
Rudin said a full roll out of the cursor tracking technology would greatly expand the data it is able to collect about its users, including whether the news feed is in view at any given time on the computer screen. The company hasn’t yet decided whether to fully implicate the technology, which is already used by a number of other sites on the web.
He mentioned: “Did your cursor hover over that ad? And was the newsfeed in a viewable area? It is a never-ending phase. I can’t promise that it will roll out. We probably will know in a couple of months.”
Rudin said the roll out, if it happens, would create a “warehouse of data” that’d be accessible across the company, and used in a multitude of ways.
The majority of users know Facebook is able to track their behaviour across the site through Likes, check-ins, etc, but this decision is unlikely to be popular among an increasingly privacy-aware user base.
Share your thoughts on Facebook’s plans in the comments section below. Are you happy with Facebook potentially tracking your every move? Literally…
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
