The Computer Tool is called "Facebook Data Valuation Tool" and it is a Google chrome add-in, which allows the user (who installs it) to observe the revenue generated by Facebook through online advertising that has been targeted to the user's wall. This is done in real time, and on an individual level. The tool has been developed by a team of Computer Science researchers at the University Carlos III of Madrid, and it had been partially funded by the MIT Data Transparency Lab. The objective of the tool is to raise awareness about the volume of revenue generated by the big tech-companies (like Facebook) thanks to the exploitation of users' personal data. You can find many information about the tool on http://www.fdvt.org/.

Download the app here

Together with other economists and cumputer scientists at ETH, we are doing several research projects based on the innovative database. Our research looks at various topics, such as how users are differently valued and targeted, according to their political ideology, how revenue is distributed geographically and whether revenue figures from online advertising could constitute the ground for designing new fiscal policy instruments to tax the big-tech companies.

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