Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-online-advertising-strategies-spark-privacy-worries Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook have started to allow advertisers to access users' profiles and target the ads they deliver to that user accordingly. A media and technology writer examines the potential impact this marketing may have on individual user privacy. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Judy Woodruff has our Media Unit look at the balance between online information's financial potential and individual privacy. JUDY WOODRUFF: It's where millions of young people list their favorite hobbies, movies, friends and trends, and now all that information from the two largest social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace, with a combined total of more than 160 million users, will be made increasingly available to advertisers.Facebook announced today that it will allow companies to show ads to its users, both when they are on and off the site, based on personal information they list online.Yesterday, MySpace unveiled a self-service advertising tool allowing groups like small businesses, musicians and politicians to post an ad and choose who sees it. They also increased a number of categories that track user preferences by more than tenfold, in order for businesses to better target their products to the much-sought-after 18 to 25-year-old demographic.This marks a shift from the online advertising model established by Google, where ads are displayed based on the keywords a person searches for. It is the biggest step yet by the social networking sites to try to capitalize on their exploding popularity.So what does all this mean for advertising and the bounds of online privacy? For that, we turn to Mark Glaser, editor and host of MediaShift, a Web log at PBS.org that looks at the intersection of media and technology.Mark Glaser, just to be clear, this is all about making money, right? MARK GLASER, Editor, MediaShift: That's right. All these social networks are very popular when it comes to the amount of people who are going to visit the sites. But as far as revenues go and how much money they're making, that's always been a question mark when it comes to social networks.