Facebook has recently rolled out its “in house” browser to “open links faster” on Android and possibly iOS devices (anyone confirm the iOS bit?) and I’ve been cool with it so far as it does seem to make things a bit faster – but then the real reason for this new feature suddenly dawned on me!
Data mining!
Now, not only do they know what you ‘like’ and what links you click on from within your Facebook app, but now they also know what you do once you are on that page. “Did you click on anything else? What else might interest you? Was the content relevant or did you bounce straight back?”
*It’s worth noting at this point that they’re not doing this so they can make a clone of you and steal your identities. They are more likely to be doing it so they can learn more about you, which in turn allows them to target their advertising better and improve their service to you… Which in turn makes you a more profitable customer for them.*
So, despite it actually being a benefit in the form of faster link opening times, it’s just a sneaky way of harvesting more of your data – and as we all know, data is the new gold.
They’ve already built a multi billion corporation with our content, now they are squeezing more out of our Facebook experience to harvest more data to use and probably sell for a huge (probably tax free) profit.
Clever move, Facebook. You sneaky little prawn.