Facebook Is Patenting Everything -- Including A System To Determine Your Socioeconomic Status

It may be time for Facebook to look at ethics and human decency before trying to monetize every piece of user data.

With Facebook in the news constantly these days — from Russian election interference to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal — what’s a little more bad publicity? If you subscribe to the theory that all publicity is good publicity, well then, Facebook might keep churning out really bad ideas.

Facebook, like other top tech companies, holds thousands of patents, with many other applications pending. The company is a business and it’s easier to make money when you can block out competition. Because patents provide a limited-term monopoly, businesses often pursue patents to ensure that they can exclude competitors from using a particular product. Each social media platform has an incentive to develop new ways to keep users engaged, providing unique offerings that other platforms cannot. To that end, companies either acquire or create systems and methods that they want to protect. For example, Facebook patented a system that displays question and answers, as an interactive feature between network users; it also patented a particular system analyzing social interactions to provide recommendations (much in the way, I assume, Amazon does when making recommendations based on my purchase history). Oh, and in case you missed the hubbub that basically forced Zuckerberg to testify for two days before Congress, Facebook also patented systems to make it easier to access user data for third-party applications, which may be exactly how Cambridge Analytica ended up with so much user data.

Sometimes Facebook’s attempts to patent every possible system or innovation that would increase its competitiveness in the market or attract greater revenue from advertisers clash with our sense of ethics and decency in very clear ways. Take the news, which broke back in February, that Facebook filed for a patent for a new system to determine a user’s socioeconomic status. The algorithm looks at education level, travel history, home ownership, zip code, the number of devices a user logs in with, and other data to estimate an individual’s socioeconomic level. That determination would be used to allow advertisers to target a certain demographic, or exclude it. High-end jewelry companies could target the wealthy, whereas pay-day services or predatory lenders might target those presumed to have lower socioeconomic status. No problems with that, right?

The news resulted in a barrage of criticisms of the company, but to be honest, I don’t know why anyone was even surprised at Facebook’s patent predicting socioeconomic status. Is it terrible PR for the company? Sure, but it is entirely in keeping with Facebook’s business model and practices. In addition to what you would expect (what content you like or share, what content you’ve uploaded, your friends lists, location, check-ins, etc.), it was also recently revealed that Facebook also collects call and text messaging data. The purpose, of course, is to sell this data to advertisers, making the users the products themselves and advertisers able to better target their advertisements. Remember, this is the company that allowed advertisers to exclude certain ethnicities, as well as anyone with an “affinity” for a particular ethnicity from seeing their ads for housing.

I suppose one might assume that Facebook learned its lesson from the race-targeting/race-excluding ad debacle, but most likely those involved with company PR are far removed from those making the decisions to PATENT EVERYTHING! Even if it makes sense from a business perspective to be able to advertise these services to your customer (the advertisers targeting Facebook users), given all of the negative publicity Facebook has faced, it may be time for the company to start taking a hard look at ethics, human decency, and consumer expectations before trying to monetize every piece of user data.

Of course, as I’ve noted before, just because a company files for a patent on a particular innovation doesn’t mean it will actually use it in practice. Companies file patents defensively, they file them as they figure out their business plans, they file them to boost their portfolios in the hope of attracting greater investments, or for many other reasons. In fact, a spokesperson for Facebook responded to news reports about its patent on determining socioeconomic data by asserting that it often seeks patents that it never implements. But, given Facebook’s history, I would actually be surprised if the Zuckerberg didn’t exploit this algorithm and offer advertisers the option of excluding individuals predicted to fall into lower socioeconomic levels.


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Krista L. Cox is a policy attorney who has spent her career working for non-profit organizations and associations. She has expertise in copyright, patent, and intellectual property enforcement law, as well as international trade. She currently works for a non-profit member association advocating for balanced copyright. You can reach her at kristay@gmail.com.

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