Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), the world’s biggest social network, holds the largest data about its users than any other company in the world. Still, it comes as no surprise as the company tries to pry on its user data to generate more relevant ads.
In the past, the company has been sued several times for breaching privacy, the most recent lawsuit being the one filed in Austria. The users, however, do not care much about their privacy as they believe that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) only collects data when they like, share or comment on a post. Well, this will no longer be the case with the new algorithm in effect.
The New Algorithm
The news feed at our Facebook homepage consists of data that is relevant to our browsing along with some unrelated content. The new algorithm will focus on how much time user spends on a particular post. It will rank these posts as relevant or irrelevant based on the time the user engaged with that post. The algorithm will employ a timer that will start as the user browses news feed.
Interestingly, this feature does not take into account what the user has liked but what the user gives time for. Based on this, the social network will secretly know what type of content user would engage in and what would he avoid. This will help Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to present users with more relevant content.
The Impact
While the browsing experience will become more smooth and relevant as a result of this, the data collection from this new algorithm will raise concerns among privacy activists. Also, the effect of using this algorithm will not be seen immediately. It will take a few months before anything substantial can be observed.
With privacy issues being raised time to time, this new feature is the smart answer of the company to continue gathering all the data they want without bothering the users. The company is trying to know the time its users spent browsing through its site. And this seems to be perfectly within their rights.
