Top Indian Advertisers Seek Clarifications from Facebook Over Data Breach Scandal

By Little India Desk | March 28, 2018

Leading advertisers of India, who use Facebook for campaigns, have asked the social media platform for clarifications, expressing their apprehensions regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal that it is mired in.

Companies like Nestle, ITC, Unilever, and others use Facebook to promote their products. However, the recent disclosures regarding data breach have made them skeptical about security issues involving the platform.

“We have asked Facebook to clarify on what more it will do to ensure consumer protection and the safeguarding of data associated with brands and advertising,” a spokesperson for Nestle India, a subsidiary of Nestle S.A of Switzerland, said, the Economic Times reported. The revelations that have been made recently about the probable misuse of consumers’ information by online platforms is being taken quite seriously by the company, the spokesperson added.

Similarly, ITC, which is among the top 10 advertisers on Facebook, is also concerned about fake news being spread through the online medium.

“Certain concerns including ever increasing fake profiles and proliferation of fake news through Facebook need to be addressed on an urgent basis,” said Hemant Malik, ITC divisional chief executive, foods, the report said. Malik added that Facebook is a huge media platform, which has changed the algorithm recently, that has made it like any other media channel instead of Facebook being a social media channel, where brands would seek to engage with the consumers.

“With multiple platforms, all stakeholders across social media platforms, advertisers and media agencies will need to work together to ensure that communications by brands to consumers appears in a relevant context,” said PepsiCo India senior vice president, beverages, Vipul Prakash.

Meanwhile, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the reported misuse of personal information and data privacy controversy linked to Cambridge Analytica in full page advertisements in leading newspapers in the United Kingdom on March 25 and in United States on March 26.

“This was a breach of trust, and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time. We’re now taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Facebook said in the advertisements, adding that it has already “stopped apps like this from getting so much information.” Zuckerberg also promised to do better for Facebook users in the advertisement, reported CBS News.

Facebook is facing the heat globally with companies like Commerzbank and Mozilla suspending their ad campaigns on the social media platform after the data breach scandal, a CNN report said.

“Mozilla is pressing pause on our Facebook advertising. Facebook knows a great deal about their two billion users—perhaps more intimate information than any other company does. They know everything we click and like on their site and know who our closest friends and relationships are,” Mozilla said in a statement on March 21.

UK firm Cambridge Analytica has been accused of harvesting data of 50 million Facebook users without their consent and failing to delete it when it was asked to do so by Facebook. The data was reportedly used to influence voting patterns in elections in many countries across the world, including the United States and India, and political decisions such as Brexit in the United Kingdom.

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