96% of users are happy with Facebook’s data-driven advertising model

As news breaks of Facebook finally achieving the milestone of 1 billion users worldwide, privacy concerns over the way users’ data is leveraged for advertising purposes are back  in the news again (as if they ever went away) following their deal with data-company Datalogix, part of an on-going drive to demonstrate the value of Facebook advertising to marketers.

While privacy watchdogs look on in dismay as they see Facebook’s continued attempts to monetise the phenomenal amounts of data that is processed through the service (north of 500 terabytes ingested each day according to Jay Parikh, VP of Engineering for Facebook), the big question is whether these fresh concerns will be enough to drive away any users.

At iCrossing we put the following question to 100 people to gauge the levels of concern around Facebook’s privacy policies:

Facebook makes the majority of its money through advertising, which can be targeted based on a user’s online browsing history, purchasing habits, friends and interests. Would you rather be charged a small monthly fee (say, £5) to have an ad-free Facebook?

While the results will likely not come as a surprise to most, it’s encouraging for both Facebook and marketers that the vast majority are not perturbed by the advertising-driven revenue model, as 96% of the Facebook users surveyed were happy to stick with the current, ad-supported, model.

Indeed, of the 4% of people that would still pay for the Facebook service, the concern appears to be with advertising in general rather than the targeting abilities of the social network.

While this certainly won’t be the last we hear of controversies around Facebook’s advertising business (the headlines are just too good), it seems that the privacy issues being raised have been a far greater problem for regulators than for users.

Survey data collected in association with Usurv. 

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