By Prince Osuagwu

Facebook has provided responses to some of the allegations against it, including that it trades users data with advertisers.

Reacting to the allegations, Facebook’s Vice President, Ads, Rob Goldman, denied that the social media platform discloses users data to advertisers.

Goldman said: “To build a product that connects people across continents and cultures, we need to make sure everyone can afford it. Advertising lets us keep Facebook free. But we aren’t blind to the challenges this model poses. It requires a steadfast commitment to privacy.

“So our promise is this: we do not tell advertisers who you are or sell your information to anyone. That has always been true. We think relevant advertising and privacy aren’t in conflict, and we’re committed to doing both well.

“We know that many of you have questions about how we use your information in advertising and what control you have over it. I’ll address some of the most frequent questions we get, but first I’ll lay out the basic mechanics of Facebook advertising,” he added.

He highlighted important areas users should understand very well, including misconceptions on how information are shared while using facebook.

“When you use Facebook, you can choose to share things about yourself like your age, gender, hometown, or friends. You can also click or like posts, pages, or articles. We use this information to understand what you might be interested in and hopefully show you ads that are relevant. If a bike shop comes to Facebook wanting to reach female cyclists in Atlanta, we can show their ad to women in Atlanta who liked a Page about bikes.

But here’s what’s key: these businesses don’t know who you are. We provide advertisers with reports about the kinds of people seeing their ads and how their ads are performing, but we don’t share information that personally identifies you. You can always see the ‘interests’ assigned to you in your  ad preferences, and if you want, remove them”.

“In this case, advertisers bring  us  the customer information so they can reach those people on Facebook. These advertisers might have your email address from a purchase you made, or from some other data source. We find Facebook accounts that match that data, but we don’t tell the advertiser who matched. In  ad preferences  you can see which advertisers with your contact information are currently running campaigns – and you can click the top right corner of any ad to hide all ads from that business”.