Facebook severs its ties with data sellers

BRITAIN: Facebook has shut down a programme that allowed advertisers to target individuals using information obtained from third-party data sellers, after the UK’s data watchdog raised concerns about the practice.

In the latest privacy pledge from the social network, which has been fighting a torrent of criticism that it has failed to protect users’ privacy, Facebook said it would stop using information from ‘‘data brokers’’.

Facebook accessed the information in exchange for sharing revenue from advertisements with the data providers. It was able to use the data to target ads at particular groups of people, even when Facebook users had not given the social network the data themselves.

The programme allowed businesses to direct ads at groups such as home owners or people with certain purchase histories.

‘‘While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook,’’ spokesman Graham Mudd said.

It is unclear why Facebook took the decision to cut ties with data brokers, which is likely to mean a significant amount of lost advertising revenue, but the UK’s privacy regulator said it had been pushing the firm over the issue and would soon release more details.

British Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, who has been investigating how data was used for political purposes during the Brexit referendum and last year’s election, said: ‘‘I have been examining this service in the context of my wider investigation into the use of personal data for political purposes, and had raised it with Facebook as a significant area of concern.’’

Frederike Kaltheuner, of campaign group Privacy International, said: ‘‘It is extremely hard to learn what data brokers hold on you as an individual. The only time users might be informed about their existence is in the privacy policies of data broker customers like Facebook.’’ Shares in Acxiom, one of the data brokers Facebook used, fell 20 per cent on Thursday.

Facebook, which has been buffeted by allegations that it failed to protect users and allowed the data of 50 million users to be harvested and retained for years by election consultants Cambridge Analytica, has made a series of privacy pledges in recent days. Earlier this week it overhauled its privacy settings to prepare for strict European data laws that will come into force in May.