Towards A New Privacy-Preserving Social Media Advertising Architecture (Invited Position Paper)

Social media marketing has emerged as a new tool for brands to reach certain target groups. While the use of platforms such as Instagram and Facebook has created a multi-billion dollar business, it has also multiplied the amount of sensitive data that is being collected. The associated risks for the end user in terms of data privacy have grown accordingly and most users are unaware of what happens to their data in the background. We propose a novel privacy-preserving social media advertising architecture, which offers a solution that is beneficial to all parties: user privacy is protected and advertisers receive sufficient statistical data, such that all marketing services can be provided in a privacy-friendly manner without sacrificing functionality. Additionally, all computed statistics can be cryptographically verified such that the currently trust-based relationship between brands and social media marketers is replaced by strong cryptographic guarantees.