Pharma using Facebook to find human guinea pigs

We all have seen these questionnaires, and now we know what goes on behind them. We are being used and we don't even know about it. Can you imagine how we are giving away sensitive information to parties that we don't even know?

This is a big racket and big players are involved, so beware!

Your medical information is private, and it should stay that way, and let us stop these companies from making money from this

FORTUNE — Let’s say you’re one of the millions of Facebook users who logs into the site for a minute to reconnect with friends. Maybe you’re taking a break from a big project at work, or settling in for an evening of couch surfing. Maybe, sadly, you have cancer, diabetes, or some other ailment. That’s when you first notice it: A Facebook ad looking for people to take part in a clinical trial — in your age range, with your illness, living in your town.

So how did Facebook know your medical secrets? They didn’t — until you clicked on the ad and told them.

In the last two years, companies like Acurian, a patient recruitment firm that supplies clinical trials with participants, have discovered an inexpensive way to find new patients with social network ads. Their methods are not at all nefarious — they’re not scanning users’ status updates or monitoring the links they post.

Instead, the Horshan, Penn.-based company buys demographic placements that match the requirements of the medical studies it is looking to fill. From there, coincidence, curiosity, and a hunger for cures has compelled millions of Facebook users to click-through the ad and fill out a qualifying questionnaire.

Source: rinf.com...

Hey, heres a tip to avoid those ads:

Theres this browser called firefox, and an addon for it called AdblockPlus. Not only does it block annoying ads on Facebook, but the cloud of as here and everywhere else.