Zucked: How Users Got Used and What We Can Do About It

For Facebook’s business, though, the IPO was an undisputed blessing. The company received a staggering amount of free publicity before the deal, essentially all of it good. That turbocharged user growth, news of which enabled Facebook to survive the IPO issues with relatively little damage. Investors trusted that a company with such impressive user growth would eventually figure out monetization. Once again, Facebook pushed the envelope, stumbled, and got away with it. Then they did something really aggressive.

The data from inside Facebook alone did not deliver enough value for advertisers. Thanks to Connect and the ubiquitous Like and Share buttons, Facebook had gathered staggering amounts of data about user behavior from around the web. The company had chosen not to use the off-site data for commercial purposes, a self-imposed rule that it decided to discard when the business slowed down. No one knew yet how valuable the external data would be, but they decided to find out. As Martínez describes it, Zuck and Sheryl began cautiously, fearful of alienating users.

Thanks to the IPO, Facebook enjoyed a tsunami of user growth. Within a few months, user growth restored investor confidence. It also overwhelmed the complaints from advertisers, who had to go where their customers were, even if the ad vehicles on Facebook were disappointing. The pressure to integrate user data from activities away from Facebook into the ad products lessened a bit, but the fundamental issues with targeting and the value of ads remained. As a result, the decision to integrate user data from outside Facebook would not be reversed.

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