Facebook sharing information on user behaviour

Facebook Inc has found a new way to use the Facebook users' data - helping the companies on social media website to collect information for better marketing of their products and to get feedback on their products.

The social media giant said yesterday that a product it called ''Topic Data'' would help companies get to know the behaviour of Facebook users, what they were looking for, their activities, and this knowledge would help them to target the relevant audience on Facebook for promotion of their products.

According to the social network, all the information was anonymised and it would not reveal any personal data that could be traceable to particular users. Facebook Inc had entered into an agreement with social-data company ''DataSift'' for providing the access to the data.

DataSift would pull the information from the social networking site and make it available to analytics firms, which would analyse the behaviour of users. The firms would then present and sell the data to its clients.

At present, access to Facebook data is free but in future it might come at a cost.

Facebook had been compiling generalised data and giving that information to companies in an attempt to allow brands see what costumers actually thought of their products.

It was the first time that Facebook had allowed marketers see what consumers thought, firsthand about their products.

''We want to make sure the information we provide is useful to marketers,'' Facebook  said, ''so we're using DataSift's technology to power the platforms that turn the data into insights.''

''Like other insights information on Facebook, all the information used for topic data is anonymised and aggregated. We are not disclosing personally identifying information to anyone, including our partners and marketers,'' the company added.

In sum, Facebook would make money on users' online behaviour, but it would not sell anything to users directly and it would not sell users' information, at least not directly. This was a new way for marketers to actually get to know their clients and customers.