>"There are no guarantees that the scraped data will be used for just academic purposes"
The whole point in the project is to make the scraped data available to anyone and everyone who is interested. They publish this data via a public database. This is articulated very clearly at the top of the Ad Observatory project page.
"Ad Observer is a tool you add to your Web browser. It copies the ads you see on Facebook and YouTube, so anyone can see them in our public database."[1]
The Ad Observatory project collects the following:
"What we collect
The advertiser's name and disclosure string.
The ad's text, image, and link.
The information Facebook provides about how the ad was targeted.
When the ad was shown to you.
Your browser language."
Additionally the code for the browser plugin is up on github[2]. How much more transparent could they be?
The whole point in the project is to make the scraped data available to anyone and everyone who is interested. They publish this data via a public database. This is articulated very clearly at the top of the Ad Observatory project page.
"Ad Observer is a tool you add to your Web browser. It copies the ads you see on Facebook and YouTube, so anyone can see them in our public database."[1]
The Ad Observatory project collects the following:
"What we collect
The advertiser's name and disclosure string.
The ad's text, image, and link.
The information Facebook provides about how the ad was targeted.
When the ad was shown to you.
Your browser language."
Additionally the code for the browser plugin is up on github[2]. How much more transparent could they be?
[1] https://adobserver.org/
[2] https://github.com/CybersecurityForDemocracy/social-media-co...