Facebook Data Sales Debate

The cluster discusses whether Facebook sells user data directly or uses it to sell targeted ads, emphasizing the distinction between selling raw data and ad targeting services.

📉 Falling 0.3x Startups & Business
4,149
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#1355
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
12
2008
10
2009
20
2010
126
2011
152
2012
212
2013
116
2014
142
2015
119
2016
183
2017
231
2018
890
2019
492
2020
366
2021
463
2022
219
2023
189
2024
107
2025
91
2026
9

Keywords

AFAIK e.g FB AI LOT CA CTR GrokNet boingboing.net VISA facebook data fb sell data sell ads user data advertisers selling ad

Sample Comments

loeg Jan 19, 2025 View on HN

Facebook does not sell data. They sell ad targeting. Selling the data would kill the ad revenue stream and kill the business.

basch May 16, 2018 View on HN

facebook doesnt sell data. facebook sells attention and billboard space. you pay facebook, facebook runs your ad on their platform, and gives you some paramaters for which people are targeted. the data never leaves facebooks black box.

734786710934 Apr 9, 2018 View on HN

Facebook doesn't sell data, it sells ads. It's in Facebook's interest to prevent advertisers and developers from collecting and misusing data so they buy more ads.

barbazfoobuzz Sep 26, 2011 View on HN

ha. this is smart by fb. if they follow the yahoo model, access to that data is sold to the agencies that want it. they don't get access for free. so fb has an interest in having a nice store of data on offer. it's a nice business unit on its own in addition to their ad selling pursuits.

sixothree Aug 7, 2020 View on HN

Why would facebook pay other companies for data about its users?

strombofulous Jun 20, 2019 View on HN

Wait, why? I thought the whole point of facebook being super invasive was so they could use that data for advertisers

kurthr Apr 19, 2018 View on HN

Facebook is incentivised to collect and collate product data because it can then sell targeted ads for those humans. As long as the most cost effective path to those targets is through Facebook, and the aggregate target volume is high enough they will make money. Distributing the login data is just advertising.

testguy34 Feb 1, 2015 View on HN

Facebook doesn't sell data, it sells targeted ads.

paulhauggis May 26, 2015 View on HN

Facebook is selling your data. A site like Reddit and Snapchat don't have same sort of data to sell.

croes Jan 25, 2021 View on HN

It's part of FB business model that the user doesn't really know what happens with his data.