Facebook explained that its latest ad platform, Atlas, will not invade the online privacy of its users, according to Tech Times.
Basically, Atlas will bring more advertisements to users based on their online activities. Through people-based marketing, it caters to the needs of marketers to reach a wider audience who use different mobile devices.
"Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers," Atlas head Erik Johnson explained. By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring devices."
"Atlas can now connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales," he added.
Atlas distributes advertisements by tracking users who log into Facebook or to other sites using their Facebook credentials. By combining cookies and demographic information, marketers are able to monitor the activities even when they're using their smartphones.
Of course, the way Atlas operates raised a few concerns regarding how Facebook uses the personal information of its users.
But according to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, the social networking site does not hand out the personal information of users to the advertisers, Business Week reported.
In addition, the ad platform will only refer to the available information set by users in their privacy settings.
"This year we did people=based privacy controls, and we're doing people-based marketing," Sandberg said. "This doesn't tell marketers who you are, and when Atlas uses Facebook data it honor the Facebook preferences of the user."
As to Facebook's decision to target mobile users with Atlas, Sandberg said it was the company's way of taking advantage of a lucrative opportunity, according to Bloomberg.
"There is just a huge shift to mobile and we're capitalizing on it by offering personalized marketing," she said. "Facebook has been built around people and focused on people since day one."