Shauna McKnight | Co-Editor in Chief

The line between what is public and what is private have been crossed in this century with the rise in popularity of the internet and social media. Suddenly, there exists a permanent outlet where everyone can say what they think or feel. People are broadcasting this information to the rest of the world, and ad companies have picked up on it – big time.

According to a recent article in the Huffington Post, Facebook has yet again changed their privacy policy. The new policy allows for Facebook to use your information “for ad purposes”. They even announced that they can use teens’ information for ads without parental permission.

To me, this feels like an invasion of privacy. The posts that I’m creating, in the privacy of my own home, are being used and possibly sold to advertisers so that they may better manipulate me into buying their product or service. I suppose there is nothing wrong with this, because Facebook is technically public. However, not everything we post is intended for everyone.

When you post a funny video to a friend’s wall, that post isn’t meant for everyone; it’s meant for your friend. Despite that intent, everyone can still see it, comment on it, and share it on their page. Probably not just your friend is clicking on that video, but we still somehow think of this as a private exchange. There is very little that is private about our lives anymore because the way we communicate has changed.

With this change in communication has come a change in the way ads are being shown to us. Right now, databases with your information and Google searches are being tracked and sold to advertisers and marketers. Facebook tracks cookies from your Google searches to display ads from your recent searches. For example, I was looking for new glasses the other day at a site called Warby Parker that sells cheap(er) hipster glasses. For weeks after, I was seeing ads on my Facebook page for different styles of glasses from Warby Parker.

I understand that this is good from a marketing standpoint, because companies can show their ads to relevant users. However, for me, the user, it feels like big brother is monitoring my online activity for their own profit, and that doesn’t feel morally right. I don’t feel as though it should be legal for companies to exploit my posts and activities for their own monetary gain.

It might be legal for Facebook to use my information in this way, but is it ethical? This is the question that the Millennial generation is going to have to answer for themselves. We have to be the ones to stand up and decide what we are willing to let billion dollar companies do with our information. This may include the creation of laws regarding transparency of social media networks that gives more knowledge to the users about how exactly their information is being used.

Graphic by Aaron Burns