Four Out of Five Americans Distrust Facebook and Hate Online Ads

Everyone has concerns about companies like Google and Facebook—even realtors.

The folks at Clever Real Estate, which matches up home buyers, sellers, and real estate agents, says in its new report that "there's certainly never been a better time to be a marketer." But even marketers have to be aware of how people feel about big-data companies, since a lot of that marketing will take place using Google and Facebook.

The results of the survey of 1,139 Americans isn't going to make the search and social giants feel any better. It's all the more relevant considering that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is suing Facebook for enabling housing discrimination via its ads.

The key find: 80 percent of us have "privacy concerns" about how Facebook is using our personal data. In short, no one trusts Zuckerberg, even after he put out his "privacy-platform" manifesto.

Even with its focus on marketers, the research at Clever Real Estate is also extremely honest in pointing out that if you're not buying a product online, then you're the product—because of ads. 83 percent don't like ads brands that follow them around online, and 76 percent find the advertising annoying. (Shocker.)

This is not only a Facebook issue. 95 percent of the survey respondents are concerned in some way about privacy on social media in general.

But here's the part Zuckerberg likes: There's a reason marketers keep going to Facebook. Everyone is there! And lots of those people—73 percent—have bought something due to a Facebook ad. That's almost double the next-best marketing platform for ads, according to this survey: Google-owned YouTube.

The author of the report, Tommy O'Shaughnessy, put it best: "Ironically, the public's privacy concerns about Facebook are exactly why Facebook is so good at serving relevant ads to its users."

Maybe an upside is that the research also shows fewer people engaging with ads on social media, from 76 percent in 2017 to only 37 percent in 2019. And younger people are sticking with YouTube and Instagram.

Finally—hey, get your interfaces in order, marketers. 86 percent of the respondents on this survey claimed that the appearance of professionalism on a website or app was a key decider in whether they'd give out personal information. That's right, it's not about security or reputation. It's about looking good.

About Our Expert

Eric Griffith

Senior Editor, Features

My Experience

I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).

I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.

In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.

I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.

The Technology I Use

My first computer was a Laser 128, an Apple II-compatible clone with an integrated keyboard, matched with an eye-straining monochrome green monitor. I used it to type papers in college for other people for money...until I discovered the Mac SE in the college computer room. That changed my life. My first cellphone was a Samsung Uproar—the silver one with the built-in MP3 player from the Napster days (the pre-iPod era).

I use an iPhone 15 Pro hourly and an iPad Air infrequently (but I'm always in the market for a cheap Android tablet). I have a PlayStation 5 just to play Spider-Man, and several Windows machines, including a work-issued Lenovo ThinkPad. I talk to Alexa and Siri all day long. I do the majority of my computing on a 15-inch LG Gram laptop attached to a Thunderbolt hub to run a multi-monitor setup—I overdid it on the power needed to simply work from home.

I'm most at home in Microsoft Word after decades of writing there. More and more, I turn to services like Google Docs, using tools like Grammarly. I use Google's Chrome browser due to an addiction to several extensions I think I can't live without, but probably could. I use Excel extensively on data-intensive stories, but for chart creation, we've switched over entirely to using Infogram for interactive features that are hard to find elsewhere. I do a lot of graphics work for my stories, but limit myself to the free and amazing Paint.NET software to edit images.

I'm a firm evangelist for using the cloud for backup and syncing of files; I'm primarily using Dropbox, which has never failed me, but I also have redundant setups on Microsoft OneDrive, plus extra picture backups on Amazon Photos and iCloud. Why take chances? For entertainment, mine is a streaming-only household—my kid has never seen network TV and barely been exposed to commercials, thanks to Roku and Amazon Music. The house is peppered with smart speakers from Amazon for instant gratification and control of smart home devices like multiple Wyze cameras and Nest Protect smoke detectors. I've got accounts on all the major social networks, to my horror. I have a robot vacuum for each floor of the house. I want a 3D printer, but not sure what I'd use it for.

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