Facebook to overhaul ad targeting

FACEBOOK will overhaul its ad-targeting systems to prevent discrimination in housing, credit and employment ads as part of a legal settlement.

For the social network, that’s one major legal problem down, several to go, including government investigations in the US and Europe over its data and privacy practices.

The changes to Facebook’s advertising methods—which generate most of the company’s enormous profits—are unprecedented. The social network says it will no longer allow housing, employment or credit ads that target people by age, gender or zip code. Facebook will also limit other targeting options so these ads don’t exclude people on the basis of race, ethnicity and other legally protected categories in the US, including national origin and sexual orientation.

The social media company is also paying about $5 million to cover plaintiffs’ legal fees and other costs.

Facebook and the plaintiffs—a group including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Fair Housing Alliance and others—called the settlement “historic.” It took 18 months to hammer out. The company still faces an administrative complaint filed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in August over the housing ads issue.

What’s not yet clear is how well the safeguards will work. Facebook has been working to address a slew of social consequences related to its platform, with varying degrees of success. Last week, it scrambled to remove graphic video filmed by a gunman in the New Zealand mosque shootings, but the footage remained available for hours on its site and elsewhere on social media.

Earlier in March, chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “privacy-focused vision” for the company to focus on messaging instead of more public sharing, but he stayed mum on overhauling Facebook’s privacy practices in its core business.

Galen Sherwin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU and the group’s lead attorney on its suit, praised the settlement as “sweeping” and said she expects it to have ripple effects through the tech industry. /