Facebook wants NYU researchers to stop sharing the political ad data it keeps secret

Facebook isn't happy with New York University.

It's because of NYU Ad Observatory, a newly launched research project from the university's engineering school that aims to show how different election campaigns are spending their ad money on the site, and what kinds of voters they're targeting. The research is gathered with help from a data-collecting browser extension.

Facebook let NYU know that the project, which is being driven by the work of more than 6,500 volunteers, runs afoul of the social network's terms of service provision barring bulk data collection.  Word of the Oct. 16 letter comes via a Wall Street Journal report that ran late Friday. Read more...