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Friday, August 31, 2012

Facebook bumps up its Ads targeting

Twitter Inc. isn't the only social-network company tweaking its advertising-targeting program. Facebook Inc. (FB) said it will start letting marketers find prospects on its social network by using personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses.

The catch: In order for a company to track a Facebook user using any of that data, the Facebook user has to have already given the company that data on their own.

Or to put it another way: Facebook is letting marketers hunt down existing customers on the website.

InsideFacebook first reported the development Thursday morning, and Facebook now said it will be rolling out the targeting option widely next week. It will give advertisers the ability to use phone numbers, email addresses, and the " UID" code that Facebook users generate when they install applications on the network.

The idea is that advertisers will hand over that data to Facebook, which will match with the user data it already has. So, say, Virgin America could advertise to people who have already flown on the airline. Both data sets are supposed to be "hashed" before they are matched, which should mean neither Virgin or Facebook would actually know the identity of the people being targeted.

Don't like the sound of that, anyway? You should be able to just say no. Facebook said advertisers will have to seek their customers' permission to use the data for marketing campaigns before they proceed.

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