[The Neal Ungerleider Newsletter]: Data, Damn Data & Data Brokers

Ahoyhoy there, readerinos.

This week's newsletter is short and sweet because I'm working on a few deadline projects, but I just wanted to share this...

I've been following the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal for a while and am fascinated by the way it's been playing out both with the media and the public at large.

Working in the weird, ungainly shadowlands between journalism, marketing, and advertising, I have worked with Facebook advertisements quite a bit. Facebook, despite their internal mantra of "connecting the world," makes money from two interrelated things: Being able to sell their users' attention spans, and being able to microsegment their users to said advertisers.

One of the reasons why advertisers and marketers (Ob-disclosure: This includes organizations I've worked with) love Facebook advertising is because of how ridiculously micro-segmented Facebook ads are.

If my client is selling a new book on how Billy Martin's managerial style of the New York Yankees has…