Singapore, 29 March 2018 – Facebook Inc would end its partnerships with several large data brokers who help advertisers target people on the social network on Wednesday.
The world’s largest social media company is under pressure to improve its handling of data after the most recent disclosed scandal with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Since Wednesday, Facebook also put all its privacy settings on one page and made it easier to stop third-party apps from using personal information. Privacy settings had previously been spread over at least 20 screens
Acxiom, being one of the long-term Facebook-Advertising companies’ data-platform exchange, had its shares traded down more than 10% to US$25 on the same day. While Facebook declined to comment on how the change could affect its ad revenue.
Advertisers would still be able to use third-party data services to measure how well their ads performed by examining purchasing data.
Facebook’s shares closed up 0.5% at US$153.03 on Wednesday. They are still down more than 17% since March 16, when Facebook first acknowledged that user data had been improperly channelled in 2014 via a third-party app to Cambridge Analytica, which was later hired by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
