Category: privacy

Google’s Ad Industry-related Job Openings: help us become the “definitive source of marketing intelligence”

These three job announcements from Google are too good to ignore. They say a lot about where Google–and global society–are headed. I’ve excerpted from the complete ad (but links are there if you want to apply!). Take a look esp. at # 2.:

1. “The role: Industry Marketing Manager, Advertising Agencies – New York

As an Industry Marketing Manager in Industry Development, you’ll establish and build marketing strategies and tactics for Advertising Agencies. This involves positioning and tailoring Google products to the Advertising Agencies Vertical, staying current with consumer and industry trends, developing a reputation as a thought leader, contributing to effective collateral and interactive presentations, and working with Research on identifying your sector’s needs, contributing to the custom research scope and packaging the results. Expertise in the Ad Agencies Vertical is preferred…

Responsibilities:

  • Create and execute strategic marketing plans and programs to support Google’s advertising sales efforts in search, display, TV, audio, print, online video and commerce…”

2. “Consumer Advertising Insights Director… As the Consumer Advertising Insights Director, you will develop and grow our existing team of consumer and industry research analysts. Working with stakeholders across functions here at Google, you will drive the overall advertising research business strategy. Your team will be responsible for developing external communication frameworks for proprietary insights, primary research roadmaps, and secondary research programs. Working with the world’s leading marketers, your team will provide actionable marketing insights across industries, brands, and customers, informing the very marketing decisions that get executed through Google and beyond.

Key responsibilities will include demonstrating the value of Google as a brand-building platform, providing unique insights into consumer perception, behavior, and attitudes around the brands we are building, and managing relationships with vendors and clients. This role will provide the opportunity to work side-by-side with Google’s sales organization to provide subject matter expertise for our customers’ marketing and consumer research functions.

Responsibilities:

  • Establish Google as the definitive source of marketing intelligence.
  • Produce actionable and industry-leading insights around consumer web behavior.
  • Assess online advertising effectiveness and manage related programs.
  • Develop correlations between online and offline media and become an intelligent broker of media mix solutions, by client, industry, and marketing objective.
  • Analyze consumer web behavior for macro insights and trends.
  • Develop new industry intelligence by conducting independent primary research studies.
  • Partner with leading think-tanks (industry groups, academia, consulting firms).”

3. “The role: Industry Marketing Manager, Brand Advertising Solutions

The Industry Marketing Manager for Brand Advertising Solutions will work to define and execute marketing programs that help drive advertiser adoption of Google’s online display and video advertising solutions. With the rapid evolution of the online advertising landscape, and Google as the leading innovator in that market, this role will be at the center of much industry change. You’ll work closely with both Google and YouTube sales management on marketing programs that educate and influence the world’s largest advertisers and ad agencies. You’re an outstanding writer, an excellent communicator and a team leader. You also have the ability to create effective, interactive presentations and deliver them in front of large groups. Your thought leadership, excellent client-servicing and relationship skills, and entrepreneurship allow you to make persuasive presentations in front of new and existing customers.

Responsibilities:

  • Create and execute strategic marketing plans and programs to support Google’s advertising sales efforts, with focus on YouTube ads and online display ads.
  • Analyze data, trends and client performance, contribute to solid strategic sales plans, and prepare research and data for presentations the Sales team will use.
  • Create marketing materials such as case studies, thought-leadership pieces, client presentations, executive presentations, videos, media kits and white papers.
  • Provide insights and case studies that promote Google’s advertising platforms in your proposals.
  • Develop event strategy and drive your sector’s visibility by speaking at industry events and interacting with the media.”

Video Ads Likely to Appear on Searches from Google

The evolution of Google from a system designed to provide the public with information into a full-blown data–collection broadband video platform promoting the interests of brands and marketers will make a very good Ph.D. thesis (we think Stanford would be a great place to write it up!). Here’s an excerpt from today’s Online Media Daily entitled: Google Considers Video for Search Listings:

Sundar Pichai, Google’s director of product management, and Nicholas Fox, Google’s group business product manager, addressed the possibility of bundling image or video ads into Google’s Universal Search. The discussion took place Thursday at the Citigroup Technology Conference in New York.

Fox says integrating video or image ads into sponsored search results is an option that has come up in internal discussions, since search ads are there to give users information that is most relevant to their query. “In many cases that’s a text ad,” Fox says. “In some cases, it may be an image, a video, or something else…” He gives the example of a local butcher: A video with shots of fresh meat and the overall store experience would be more enticing than a 10-word text ad. More value is provided to both the consumer and advertiser. Currently there is more thinking than action around the issue at Mountain View, and for potential experiments, Google will proceed “cautiously and slowly,” Fox says.

According to Pichai…[A]ny steps Google makes will have to be “incremental and evolutionary.”

source: “Google Considers Video for Search Listings.” Tameka Lee. Online Media Daily. September 7, 2007

Knight Foundation and a Grant for Viacom’s MTV: Funding a giant on its Journalism advisory committee

We have long had concerns about foundations funding media conglomerates to provide public service content. So, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s recent award of $700,000 to MTV was troubling for us. The grant, part of Knight’s News Challenge awards, was so MTV can create “a Knight Mobile Youth Journalist (Knight “MyJos”) in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to report weekly – on cell phones, and other media – on key issues including the environment, 2008 presidential election and sexual health.” Viacom’s 2006 revenues were $11.5 billion. Don’t you think there’s enough left over to pay for the mobile journalism program! The idea that MTV should be subsidized for contributing to public service is wrong-headed. Besides, MTV is engaged in such mobile activities to help build up its brand so it can earn more online advertising dollars.

Journalism foundations such as Knight–and J-Schools–should be holding the media industry’s editorial feet to the fire, shaming them to spend more money on serious journalism. Knight should not be funding media conglomerates whose owner resides comfortably in Beverly Hills. Meanwhile, it what raises some interesting questions about “insider funding,” we note that Viacom’s MTV VP Ian Rowe serves on the Knight Foundation advisory committe for journalism. Rowe is quoted in the Knight Foundation press release announcing its News Challenge grants as a grantee spokesperson.

PS: What timing. Broadcasting & Cable just reported that Knight is again teaming with Viacom’s MTV to give away $500,000 to support “young people who have ideas for pushing journalism into the digital age.” It’s called the “Young Creators Award.” We hope all the money has come from Viacom. By the way, Knight and media beat reporters should be asking what MTV is doing with the data it can collect from mobile users. Will it engage in targeting for its other products? In what ways are the Knight supported work designed to build up the commercial role of MTV? How much is such pro-social ad campaigns worth to Viacom’s bottom-line?

Yahoo! has unveiled an online targeting ad category for elections–raising serious questions about privacy and potential voter manipulation. Now, in addition to fast foods and cars, marketers can use Yahoo!’s ad platforms to target voters. Here’s what Yahoo! says it can do [excerpt]:

“The most sophisticated targeting tools that allow micro-targeting of audiences… We offer the most targeted elections audiences with more options than any other network or media…
Control and manage your message with paid media solutions designed to deliver on your objectives…
Create impact with rich, interactive ads designed to allow data capture and video…
Extensive data and analytics that ensure strategic measurement of results…
Access tools that provide detailed information on who is interacting with your ads. Gain an extra edge during your campaign with detailed trial and repeat data on consumers exposed to your messages…Yahoo! offers consulting on rich media solutions—ensuring your campaign is maximized to meet its target objectives and is leveraging the latest technology and most cutting edge learnings in creative and technical best practices.”

Among the targeting tools Yahoo! offers candidates and campaigns are [excerpt]:

“Behavioral Targeting
Target visitors by what they are currently doing and have been doing. Looking for car shoppers, soccer moms or recent shoppers in any category? We have them.

Database Targeting
You’ve done a lot to build your database, how about putting it to work on Yahoo!? Match your customers with ours, use your own segmentation, target messages to your best customers, and find lots more who look-like them too.”

None of these new media marketing approaches should be used by candidates and campaigns. There first should be a broad public debate about the power of these technologies and how they might be used. Only after we have the appropriate national privacy policy and the development of ethical and legal standards for electoral digital micro-targeting and marketing, should we see campaigns embrace the full range of online advertising approaches.

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Yahoo! Swallows Blue Lithium to Expand its Behavioral Targeting Effort

The ever-growing consolidation of control in the online ad market continues (something CDD and USPIRG warned the FTC about in Nov. 2006). Yesterday, Yahoo! acquired ad network and behavioral targeting firm Blue Lithium. The deal is part of the spate of $30b or so mergers [Ad Age. sub. may be required] and acquisitions in the ad marketplace we’ve witnessed just in the first half of 2007. There have been major deals by Google [Doubleclick], Microsoft [aQuantive], Time Warner’s AOL [Third Screen Media, Tacoda], WPP [24/7] and Yahoo! itself (RightMedia]. These deals are a major threat to privacy. Here’s what Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang said in announcing the deal:

“This acquisition will extend our ability to deliver powerful data analytics, advanced targeting and innovative media buying strategies to our customers, who are increasingly looking for these insights. By leveraging BlueLithium’s complementary expertise and tools, we will be able to better address the needs of our performance-based display advertisers and enhance the value of our publishers’ inventory.”

Blue Lithium adds to Yahoo!’s BT data-collecting and targeting arsenal ( it recently launched the perversely termed “smart ads” effort). It’s newly acquired online ad exchange–RightMedia–also offers behavioral targeting. There is a tremendous explosion going on in terms of data collection, profiling, etc. from online marketers. It’s not–as Yahoo! lamely claims–about seeing an ad for Las Vegas instead of Paris if you want to get married in Nevada. It’s about commercial surveillance and the manipulation of the public.

PS: Paidcontent.org pointed out this comment on Yahoo!s corporate blog, which shows you their partners and reach:
“By acquiring BlueLithium, we’ll be accelerating our advertiser, product, and engineering roadmaps and will be in position to better compete in the burgeoning performance marketing arena.

This is the logical next step as we build what we believe will be one of the world’s leading online display ad networks, which includes inventory on Yahoo!’s owned and operated properties, our affiliate network (our partnerships with eBay, Comcast, and our consortium of nearly 400 newspapers), the Yahoo! Publisher Network, and the Right Media Exchange.”

Stat on Blue Lithium via DM News:  “According to comScore Media Metrix, BlueLithium is the fifth largest ad network in the United States and second largest in the UK with 145 million unique visitors each month.”

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For Sale on Ebay: Your Online Privacy

eBay is working with behavioral targeting technologies, including a test “retargeting” users (that means electronically shadowing) as they visit AOL, MSN, clients of Yahoo’s RightMedia ad exchange and other sites (eBay has contracted with AOL’s Tacoda subsidiary, a behavioral targeting specialist). According to Behavioral Insider, eBay is using “a member’s on-site history to target relevant ads by its many Power Sellers.” As the publication explains, “[T]he world’s biggest online auction house knows a lot about its users’ bidding, browsing and buying habits, and now eBay is leveraging this knowledge in behavioral ad targeting both on and off the site.”

How is eBay tracking users? Here’s what Kasey Chappelle, director of eBay’s marketplace division, told the Insider: “Some of the things we are doing off-eBay involve retargeting where you are traveling to a site after being to eBay and we place an eBay ad there that is going to change depending on what you have done in the past on an eBay site.” eBay’s Scott Shipman explained that the kind of data used to track and target you includes… “category type of data, bidding data, the types of items you may be bidding on or browsing on within the eBay system… What we know about are items you are bidding and browsing and listing and selling in certain categories, so we can pass that information into a profile. When you are out on the Internet and are about to see an eBay ad we can associate that affinity with the ad.”

This, of course, raises serious personal privacy concerns. But while eBay is proclaiming that it’s protecting your privacy—it’s not really in our opinion. That’s because Ebay’s new so-called “AdChoice” privacy scheme is an opt-out service. According to the news report, one can “opt-out” of the system if eBay customers click on various links that then send them “directly to a page that lets then [sic] state a preference whether they want their eBay data used to target that ad to them.”

Here’s how eBay’s Shipman, who serves as its senior counsel, global privacy practice, explains it: “The eBay page explains the AdChoice program, that we care about your information and how you are targeted and marketed to. And if you would prefer that we don’t use your information to target ads to you, you can tell us that you would prefer a generic ad and not have ads targeted to you. And you opt out immediately.”

We placed a call to Mr. Shipman early yesterday, seeking an explanation of the opt-out scheme. But he did not return the call as of this posting.

eBay has been one of the leading companies promoting network neutrality–an open Internet. Protecting privacy is a key component of such an open and democratically-run online medium. Privacy shouldn’t be for sale–even on eBay.

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Role of Interactive Advertising & the Subprime Scandal: Another wake-up call for FTC

Yesterday’s Financial Times has an important story which should trigger an investigation into how the online marketing industry has faciliatated the selling of subprime mortgages and other credit. The online ad industry–including search engines and publishers–have to begin to act more responsibly. It’s time for real public policies by the FTC and Congress to protect consumers. Here’s an excerpt from Richard Waters FT piece:

“Internet companies are bracing for a possible fall-off in one of their biggest sources of advertising following the meltdown in the subprime mortgage market…Pricing could also be hurt more broadly on some classes of advertising on web search engines, because fewer advertisers are expected to be competing in the advertising auctions run by companies such as Google to have their messages displayed next to specific keywords.

“A lot of the subprime [advertising] has gone away,” said David Jakubowski, general manager of Microsoft’s MSN service.

This loss had yet to have a broader effect in the search business, he added…

Many online companies depend for a disproportionate amount of their income on financial services advertising, with subprime in some cases accounting for a large part of it.

Sixteen per cent of all online advertising comes from financial services companies, making it the second biggest source of advertising behind the retailing sector…

Companies that lent to subprime borrowers relied heavily on the internet to attract customers, concentrating the effect of the meltdown…According to data from Nielsen/NetRatings, mortgage lenders Countrywide and Low Rate Source were two of the 10 biggest online advertisers in the US in July.”

Take a look as well at this very interesting ZDNet Aug. 16th online column by Dan Farber and Larry Dignan (excerpt):

onlineads.png

The top spender on advertising is a mortgage referral company Low Rate Source (woops). The third ranked company is credit rating firm Experian (may actually do better because if your credit rating isn’t pristine you’re not getting a mortgage). And the fourth ranked advertiser was Countrywide Financial, which just tapped its credit line because mortgage liquidity is drying up. Countrywide is a lock to cut spending and its online advertising budget. And you can’t peruse Yahoo Finance or Google Finance without getting a mortgage pitch somewhere.

InterActive Corp. is the fifth ranked advertiser and it’s a safe to bet that some of that advertising directs folks to LendingTree, which also refers folks to lenders…Meanwhile, there are a lot of keywords being bought by those aforementioned companies. Watch the language from Google, Microsoft or Yahoo to monitor the fallout.”

And when Congress, the FTC or state attorneys-general begin investigating, it may be useful to consider this, courtesy of MediaPost’s Marketing Daily:

“A recent article by Patricia A. McCoy in the Harvard Journal on Legislation, titled “Rethinking Disclosure in a World of Risk-Based Pricing,” found that “numerous subprime ads are tantamount to affirmative misrepresentations.”

Specifically, McCoy found two main areas of advertising deception under the terms of the Truth in Lending Act. First, “TILA allows sub-prime lenders to tout their best rates, without disclaimers and regardless of the fact that numerous sub-prime customers will not qualify for those rates.” Second, TILA also “permits lenders to dangle alluring teaser rates before consumers without notifying them how high their interest rates might go following rate reset.”

In effect, she adds, this means that “sub-prime lenders can entice customers with rosy prices that are not available to weaker borrowers, hike the price after customers pay a hefty application fee, then raise the price again at closing.”

Murdoch’s MySpace expands data collection/ad targeting, including on whether users say they smoke, drink, religious beliefs, etc.

The powerful commercial forces shaping new media platforms like MySpace–so they can better reap big dollars from powerful brand advertisers– should raise user alarm bells. MySpace is going to [our italics] “leverage the data input by each MySpace user into their profile from a group of predefined menu choices (related to questions such as drinker, children, education, smoker, religion, college, employer, etc). Within the next year, MySpace will be able to target ads based on what users write and place on their Myspace page itself, such as what TV shows members like to watch or music they listen to. Aside from focusing on members’ login pages, the ad targeting will be used across all of the MySpace-programmed, “safe” advertising sections, such as the Music homepage and MySpaceTV.” That’s according to a 8/24 report from paidcontent.org

On August 17th, Coca Cola also paid $1 million to “have its logo splashed across the entire home page of the Fox Interactive Media social net for the entire day.”

Such news follows last week’s report from the Wall Street Journal on Facebook’s plans to expand the role of advertising and targeted marketing as well. Much more work needs to be done to create social networks where marketing is done responsibly in terms of privacy, environmental sustainability, and with the focus on revenues serving community interests.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission should open up an investigation. It’s additional evidence that the agency has to swiftly act to protect consumers, including youth. The upcoming town hall on online marketing and data collection–done in response to a complaint filed by this blogger’s group and USPIRG–is insufficient. What will it take for the FTC to be proactive in this area? Congress should hold hearings on how well the agency is truly addressing the ever-growing threats to online privacy from interactive marketing, including its impact on the public health.

PS: Just a reminder about what a former Fox Interactive president said about MySpace, according to trade reports: the “digital gold inside of MySpace wasn’t the number of users, but the information they’re providing, structured and unstructured data” …

PPS: More on what to expect from profile-based targeting via MySpace [excerpt from 8/7/07 Mike Barrett interview] :”By October or November we’ll have broken these 11 segments into 100 segments. So you can target people who are not just interested in beauty, but makeup. Or people not just interested in travel, but safari travel. Being able to break down the segments even more finely will add more value to marketers.”

Social Relationship data collection and targeting [via imediaconnection]: “Conventional wisdom says that MySpace and Facebook are powerful because of their massive reach and addictive usage. While true, they are in fact even more powerful because they are able to add significant layers of data to make their advertising more relevant. Indeed, very few properties other than social networks collect the various layers of data necessary to provide true relevance. Social networks have the potential to serve advertisements based on a user’s age, sex, interest, relationship data, and with some modifications, they could add the rest of the data as well.”

The imediaconnection piece says that social network marketers can define relationship data by asking itself: “What do we know about the user’s friends that can enable us to better target the advertising.”

When Do Google, Washington Post, Time Warner, Disney, Microsoft, Cox et al. work together lobbying? As they help IAB make the U.S safe for Internet Advertising practices

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has stepped up its efforts as a lobbying force in D.C. The group wants to make sure we don’t have laws and regulations which would meaningfully protect the public, including consumers. Here’s how the IAB describes its “Public Policy Council” (one of the groups many standing councils and committees):

“Proactively lobby Congress and Federal Administrative agencies on privacy issues, with a focus on educating key decision-makers on the importance of the interactive advertising industry. 2. Help craft meaningful legislative proposals that protect consumers’ privacy interests without unduly burdening legitimate interactive advertising practices. 3. Engage the Federal Trade Commission to influence future enforcement proceedings, potential rulemakings, and public workshops on issues central to the interactive advertising industry.”

Here is their mission statement and a list of the policy council members:

Mission

Lead the advocacy efforts of IAB’s membership as they engage all levels of government on key policy issues in order to ensure continued growth of the industry.

Committee Leadership
  • Dave Morgan, Tacoda, Chair
Committee Participants
  • Alan Davidson, Google, Inc.
  • Alan Roth, Zango
  • Alexandra Wilson, Cox Newspapers, Inc.
  • Alissa Kaplan, 24/7 Real Media, Inc.
  • Andrew Moskowitz, Vizi Media
  • Anne Lucey, CBS Digital Media
  • Bennet Kelley, ValueClick Media
  • Bennett Zucker, Right Media Inc.
  • Bill Bailey, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Bob Filice, Blue Lithium
  • Brad Aaron, Q Interactive
  • Brent Thompson, IAC Media & Advertising
  • Brooks Dobbs, DoubleClick, Inc.
  • Bryce Harlow, CBS Digital Media
  • Caroline Little, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
  • Charles Curran, AOL
  • Chris Kelly, Facebook
  • Chris Lin, comScore
  • Cliff Harris, Cablevision Advanced Systems
  • Colin Johnson, Motive Interactive Inc
  • Craig Spiezle, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Dan O’Connell, WeatherBug
  • Danny Choriki, ADTECH US, Inc.
  • David Cancel, Compete, Inc.
  • David Green, NBC Universal Digital Media
  • David Payne, CNN.com
  • Diane McDade, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Don Mathis, Azoogle Ads, Inc.
  • Erin Miranda, Weather Channel Interactive (Weather.com)
  • Frank Torres, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • George Pappachen, Dynamic Logic
  • Greg Berretta, Zango
  • Gregg Pendola, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Henry Goldstein, CNET Networks, Inc.
  • Hillary Smith, Right Media Inc.
  • Ho Shin, Advertising.com
  • Jeff Long, Revolution Health Group
  • Joey Lesesne, Cox Newspapers, Inc.
  • John Barabino, Google, Inc.
  • John Hopkins, WebMD
  • John Orlando, CBS Digital Media
  • John Wilk, WorldNow
  • Jonathan Meyers, Forbes.com
  • Josh Brown, CBS Digital Media
  • Jules Polonetsky, AOL
  • Karl Gallant, ValueClick, Inc.
  • Ken Levin, Edmunds.com
  • Ken McGraw, Zango
  • Laura O’Daly, iVillage, Inc
  • Lesley Grossblatt, I/PRO
  • Leslie Dunlap, Yahoo!, Inc.
  • Linda Chan, SourceForge Inc.
  • Linda Schoemaker, aQuantive, Inc.
  • Lisa Anderson, AOL
  • Louis Hengen, Tacoda
  • Marilyn Cade, AT&T
  • Mary Berk, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Matt Kaminer, WebMD
  • Matthew Stern, Musicloads
  • Melissa DeVita, MediaFLO USA, Inc.
  • Michael Drobac, Ask, Inc
  • Pablo Chavez, Google, Inc.
  • Pesach Lattin, Vizi Media
  • Phil Stelter, Range Online Media, Inc.
  • Richard Bates, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Rick Lane, News. Corp
  • Robert Gratchner, Atlas Solutions
  • Sarah Deutsch, Idearc Media Corp.’s SuperPages.com
  • Shayne Bryant, Idearc Media Corp.’s SuperPages.com
  • Shayne Wiley, Yahoo!, Inc.
  • Sheri McGaughy, Weather Channel Interactive (Weather.com)
  • Sherrese Smith, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
  • Steve Emmert, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell
  • Susan Fox, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Tom Bartel, Return Path
  • Tom Beck, Enlighten

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Facebook’s new Digital Ad Plan: FTC Needs to Act Now!

Today’s Wall Street Journal story on Facebook’s plans to expand one-to-one interactive ad targeting is just the latest example of the growing threats to personal privacy online [“Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan.” Vauhini Vara. Aug. 23, 2007. sub. required]. The story notes [my italics] that “Facebook Inc. is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves. Eventually, it hopes to refine the system to allow it to predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.

As the industry watches the Palo Alto, Calif., start-up to see if it can translate its popularity into bigger profits, Facebook has made the new ad plan its top priority…”

Online marketers such as Facebook and so many others want to harvest the ever-flowing rich vein of personal/ behavioral-related info flowing over websites–our friends, interests, media consumption and buying habits, etc.–all so we can be targeted by precision multimedia marketing techniques. The FTC’s recently announced “town hall” meeting about online marketing and privacy–spurred principally by this blogger’s group and US PIRG with our 11/06 complaint–is a completely inadequate response to the problem. Frankly, the FTC cannot act as if they are clueless here, or suggest that the town meeting is part of an intense analysis. The problems are glaring and evident, as we’ve been making clear to the FTC for almost one-year now. It’s time for major policy action to protect the public from unscrupulous marketing techniques designed to invade our privacy and manipulate our behaviors. Facebook should be a wake-up call to the folks at 600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the Hill. If we can’t especially protect Facebook’s young users, (as well as with other social networking sites) it reveals how inadequate our governmental watchdogs are.

PS: It’s worth watching this Ad Age video on how marketers are flocking to Facebook. But a sub. may be required.

Latest stats on Facebook, via MediaPost:”

Facebook has grown three times as fast as MySpace in the past year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Seeing a massive influx of first-timers, Facebook U.S. visitor numbers reached 26.6 million in May–up a full 89% year-over-year and 3.6 million more than in April, according to comScore.  Worldwide, comScore reported, Facebook reached 47.2 million visitors in May–8.4 million more than in April, and with an average of 20.6 visits per user.”

PPS! Yesterday, the Financial Times had an important story about the CIA using Facebook and other sites to target their recruiting. Here’s an excerpt [my italics]: “Underscoring the power of social-networking sites, the Central Intelligence Agency recently used Facebook to help boost applications for the national clandestine service. The move sparked concerns that the CIA was monitoring members, which the agency denies.

”Earlier this year, the CIA used Facebook – an excellent peer-to-peer marketing tool – to advertise employment opportunities with the agency,” said George Little, a CIA spokesman. “This effort, part of a much broader campaign leveraging traditional and new advertising media, was used strictly for informational purposes.” [source: US launches ‘MySpace for spies’. Demetri Sevastopulo. FT. Aug 21, 2007. ]