Each slider bar on the Facebook Mood Manipulator extension
corresponds with a specific emotion.
Facebook and Nielsen, a TV ratings measurement company, are teaming up to collect data about your mobile TV watching habits.
Starting this fall, just in time for all the new network shows, Facebook is going to know when you watch television on any of your mobile devices (phones and tablets). It will scan your profile, and send your age, sex and what you’re watching to Nielsen.
"The world is shifting radically, and so we had to evolve our measurement so that we could capture all of this fragmented viewing," Cheryl Idell, a Nielsen executive vice president, told the Los Angeles Times. Idell is right. Gone are the days where most people watched TV on a TV. Now you can watch your favorite "Game of Thrones" episode on your iPhone or iPad on the subway, in the bathroom, at work, in an airplane, on a boat ...
So if you've ever entertained the idea of finishing the last 10 minutes of "Pretty Little Liars" on your iPad, what does this deal mean for you?
1. All the things that could help identify you are, so they claim, protected.
According to the Times, the companies described the deal as a “double-blind science experiment.” Basically, Facebook is not going to know what TV show you actually watch, it will just get a numerical code representing a show. In turn, Nielsen will not get any information on you other than your gender and age.
2. You’re probably not going to know this is happening.
Usually, when consumers watch television on a mobile device using any application embedded with Nielsen’s "software meter," they get the opportunity to opt-out of being monitored. This is not the case with the Facebook-Nielsen proposal.
3. This isn’t the only data-collection program using Facebook to collect non-Facebook related data.
In 2010, the two companies joined forces to collect similar data about which online advertisements were being watched.
4. You won’t receive any targeted ads or suggestions.
Facebook, which is often criticized for lax privacy policies given the amount of information it has on users, doesn’t want Nielsen to use this information for anything other than getting a better understanding of consumer habits.
"We have worked with Nielsen under strong privacy principles," a Facebook spokesperson told the Times. "We don't believe that audience measurement systems should be used to adjust targeting; they should only be used for measurement. This protects the privacy of people viewing ads and ensures that both advertisers and publishers have the same information about the audiences."
5. There’s only one way to avoid this.
Watch TV on a mobile device that has never been used to log into Facebook. Good luck with that.
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