I have watched with interest the kerfuffle surrounding Cambridge Analytica, what they have done has, imho, been going on in various forms for years, 35 years ago we would use Acorn analysis (a classification of residential neighbourhoods) which could be used in order to target marketing of specific products to certain areas and thus consumers. This was then drilled down further until everyone was put in a pigeonhole covering so many natural habits of individuals, what Cambridge Analytica appear to have done is finesse this by taking all the evidence we have volunteered to put out on a social media platform,this could have been achieved without the assistance of FB albeit would have taken far more hands on analysis, in this knowledge I believe FB decided to cash in and sell the info in a format which enabled analysts to more easily achieve their objectives.
Personally I do not believe they have done anything wrong however I am certain others view it differently despite the fact they are responsible for putting so much personal information into the public domain. What do you guys think?