Why Google, Facebook are limiting people to the roles society expects them to play

The new advertising bias has severe social implications. Lori Andrews' piece is a must-read.

New York Times :: Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85% of its total revenue. Yet Facebook’s inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others. Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads.

[Lori Andrews:] When young people in poor neighborhoods are bombarded with advertisements for trade schools, will they be more likely than others their age to forgo college? ... Advertisers are drawing new redlines, limiting people to the roles society expects them to play.

Lori Andrews is a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the author of “I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy.”

Continue to read Lori Andrews, www.nytimes.com