wordpress blog stats
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Facebook’s targeted ads are discriminatory, should be held liable: US DoJ

The United States Department of Justice has sided with (pdf) four housing alliances and housing groups after they accused Facebook of being discriminatory — by excluding people based on sex, race, gender, Zip code or religion - through its targeted ads. These practices were allegedly used by landlords and property dealers on the platform. The National Fair Housing Alliance, Fair Housing Justice Center Inc, Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence Inc and Fair Housing Council of Greater San Antonio filed the complaint against Facebook. The US Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department has now filed a complaint against Facebook, accusing the company of housing discrimination and clear violation of the federal fair housing laws, implemented as part of the Civil Rights Act 1968. The complaint by the HUD came on the same day the DoJ targeted Facebook on similar issues. Fair housing activists have told a district court in the US that people have been discriminated even on whether the person had English as Second Language or a Disabled Parking Permit. Facebook's ad tools leaving out certain criteria The crux of the complaint is that Facebook's targeted advertising tools such as "Boosts" and "Ad Manager" have enabled discrimination by providing property owners and dealers with a mechanism to include some and exclude others. These tools are popularly used to target or narrow down ads and create a custom target audience, thus including or excluding people who will see the ad (on their News feeds) based on the platter of information collected by…

Please subscribe/login to read the full story.
Written By

I cover health, policy issues such as intermediary liability, data governance, internet shutdowns, and more. Hit me up for tips.

Free Reads

News

Telecom companies are against a regulatory sandbox, as they think information revealed by businesses during the sandboxing process might be confidential should be out...

News

According to a statement, the executive body of the European Union had also sought internal documents on the risk assessments and mitigation measures for...

News

The newly launched partially open-sourced LLM Grok-1 can be commercially used but not trademarked.

MediaNama’s mission is to help build a digital ecosystem which is open, fair, global and competitive.

Views

News

NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe recently said that what is not written in regulations is a no-go for fintech entities. But following this advice could...

News

Notably, Indus Appstore will allow app developers to use third-party billing systems for in-app billing without having to pay any commission to Indus, a...

News

The existing commission-based model, which companies like Uber and Ola have used for a long time and still stick to, has received criticism from...

News

Factors like Indus not charging developers any commission for in-app payments and antitrust orders issued by India's competition regulator against Google could contribute to...

News

Is open-sourcing of AI, and the use cases that come with it, a good starting point to discuss the responsibility and liability of AI?...

You May Also Like

News

Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...

Advert

135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...

News

By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...

News

Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...

MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. More about MediaNama, and contact information, here.

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ

Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Name:*
Your email address:*
*
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ