New Facebook Policy Restricts Ad Targeting

Facebook Inc. (“Facebook”) has announced new ad targeting restrictions for Facebook advertisers operating in the housing, employment and credit marketing space. What do social media marketers need to know? Facebook Ad Targeting by Ethnic Affinity Facebook monitors its users’ posts and collects other data to assign an “ethnic affinity” to each Facebook user (e.g., African-American, Hispanic or Asian-American).  Facebook marketers can use ethnic affinity as an ad targeting parameter to specifically include or exclude Facebook users of a particular ethnicity. A number of community leaders criticized Facebook for allowing its advertisers to engage in ad targeting by ethnicity, pointing out that advertisers could use Facebook’s ethnic affinity data for purposes of unlawful discrimination.