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Is There Anything Facebook Could Do to Make Us Leave?

The company announced it's going to serve ads based on your Facebook data, all across the web. Will you dare leave behind your photos and connections?
Image: Franco Bouly/Flickr

Facebook could hardly be under more scrutiny right now as it faces a potential user exodus to Ello, a social network that's attempting to confront Facebook's much-maligned data sharing and privacy policies. In response, the company announced the rollout of its revamped ad platform, Atlas, which can now track you across multiple devices, and across the web, even when you're offline. Oh, great.

The move is a power play, for sure: It comes as a challenge, or maybe a dare, to the legions of internet users who claim to despise Facebook's ad policies. You found your way out with Ello, but are you really going to take it?

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If people are not going to leave Facebook now, will they ever?

Atlas, which Facebook purchased from Microsoft last year, was re-launched under the banner of "people-based" marketing. As Atlas noted in a company press release, they can connect online ad impressions with offline purchases. Others are reporting that this means Facebook will be able to serve you ads on other websites based on the treasure-trove of data Facebook has about you.

So far, Atlas nor Facebook are going into much detail at the moment about exactly how this will be accomplished. Atlas is a big step up for Facebook's advertising game, an attempt to leverage all that data it has about you, and, perhaps, a sign that it wants to go toe-to-toe with Google in the advertising space. So far, global advertising giant Omnicom has signed up to buy ads from the new platform on behalf of its clients Pepsi and Intel.

It's hard to imagine how Facebook could be any more brazen in its disregard for exactly the kinds of concerns that are driving users to Ello and other platforms, like Diaspora, the once-hyped Facebook killer that seems to have gained some more attention in light of Ello's burgeoning popularity. It's enough to make one wonder: What will it take to get us to forget about Facebook, at this point? Could anything?

In a way that MySpace and Friendster weren't, Facebook is integrated in all parts of our lives. If you ditch Facebook for Ello, maybe you'll miss out on party invites, for instance. But, more importantly, what happens to the thousands and thousands of photos you've stored there? What happens to the interactions you had with friends who have died or the messages you sent to your high school sweetheart?

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While venture capitalists who fund startups like I eat pizza (in extreme amounts, and essentially indiscriminately) may be interested in scrappy newcomers like Ello, business giants like Omnicom belong to Facebook's world. And, for better or worse, the masses are entrenched in Facebook thanks to the amount of effort and tangible things (those photos) they've invested in it.

For the rest of us, the way our eyeballs and actions are constantly bought and sold is getting to be a bit too much. That's why you see Ello, and it's why you're seeing calls for alternative internets altogether.

And that's not to say Facebook's hold will last forever. The question, if it happens, is whether it's going to be because users latched on to something else or because, at some point, people decided they didn't want to be sold anymore.

It's unclear what will ultimately happen to Facebook, Ello, or the unscrupulous world of the online data trade writ large, in terms of the fine details. Nothing lasts forever, but in terms of what we've seen in the social networking world so far, it sure seems like Facebook's reign has.

Atlas' re-launch at this juncture comes as a slap in the face, of sorts, to privacy-conscious users and we have a decision to make: Are we going to take it, or are we going to take steps to combat it? It probably depends on how much you're willing to miss out on.