A patent that could once again infringe on the privacy of users.
If you’re one of those people who feels like you’re being watched by Facebook, you’re not done worrying. A new patent published on Thursday details how Facebook plans to place advertising in Messenger conversations. The ads are already integrated into the Messenger app, but the social network did not yet offer the possibility of interfering in private conversations. On several occasions, Facebook denied rumors that the social network was observing its users to target advertising.
This ad refers to a plug-in that would allow advertisers to use location data, as well as the content of conversations to display targeted ads. On this patent sketch, you can see that a person informing a friend of a trip to the Grand Canyon could trigger an advertisement related to the Grand Canyon. In addition to keywords, these ads could also rely on the location data of either one’s phones.

Like many companies, Facebook frequently patents new ideas, yet not all of them are born. While Mark Zuckerberg announced this year that he wanted to redirect his company’s services around private messaging and encryption, this targeted advertising system could well create real privacy problems. The company has just paid a hefty $5 billion fine to the FTC for violating privacy. It would be surprising if Mark Zuckerberg and his teams would develop such an advertising system.