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How Much Are You Worth to Facebook? A Free Tool Now Provides the Answer


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What is the value of a Facebook user?

A new tool developed by researchers at Spain's University of Madrid can measure a Facebook user's value to advertisers.

Credit: Shutterstock

Researchers at Spain's University of Madrid have developed a tool that can identify a Facebook user's economic value on the advertising market in real time.

Facebook users enter some basic identity data, including their age, gender, relationship status, interests, and country into the Facebook Data Visualization Tool (FDVT), which can be downloaded as a free extension for Google Chrome and soon for Firefox and Opera.

The tool indicates people in the U.S. are worth twice as much to advertisers as Facebook users in Spain.

The researchers also note FDVT found Facebook continually makes a profit, whether users click on ads or not. Based on their Web activity and identity data, Facebook users receive increasingly personalized ads so as to improve the advertiser's return on investment.

The work is part of the Horizon 2020-funded TYPES project, which supports the development of tools that will help guarantee privacy and transparency. Such tools would enable people to gain greater control over the information they share.

From CORDIS News
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Abstracts Copyright © 2016 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA


 

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