Social media ad targeting could face a mass rebellion

Platforms must change their ways—just as the tobacco and fast-food industries found they had to

- BIJU DOMINIC

A few days ago, there was a significant judgement by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) of the UK. Its ruling was based on a lawsuit filed by Tanya O'Carroll against Meta in 2022. Meta's platforms include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. O'Carroll had created her Facebook account about 20 years ago. In her lawsuit, she asked Meta to stop using her personal data to fill her social media feeds with targeted advertisements based on topics it thought she was interested in. Her lawsuit argued that since Facebook's targeted advertising system was covered by the UK's definition of direct marketing, individuals had the right to object. The ICO, as the UK's data watchdog, has agreed with her contention and approved of her right to object.

It was in 2017, when O'Carroll found out that she was pregnant, that she realized the extent to which Facebook was targeting ads at her. The ads she got on the social media platform "suddenly started changing within weeks to lots of baby photos and ads about babies, pregnancy and motherhood," she recounts. "I just found it unnerving—this was before I'd even told people in my private life, and yet Facebook had already determined that I was pregnant." O'Carroll felt very uncomfortable with what she called "predatory, invasive advertising." So she sought legal recourse to push back this practice of surveillance advertising.

Facebook has agreed to stop targeting ads at an individual user using personal data, based on ICO's judgement. O'Carroll said she hoped her individual settlement would make it easier for others who wanted the platform to stop targeting them with ads.