Google keeps their data private because they've already secured their advertising/search territory. Disclosing profiles would only undermine their competitive advantage.
It seems like Facebook gave away that information in hopes of developing a more engaging walled garden with 3rd party help, and perhaps some naivety.
> I'm guessing Facebook has the technical expertise to allow 3rd parties to run aggregate (non identifying) queries on the consenting users' data on servers they control and only allowing certain aggregated data, as well as limiting the number and type of queries 3rd parties are running.
This is a very challenging problem - multiple "non-identifying" queries can actually identify individuals. Differential privacy is the best solution so far, however it's still challenging to guarantee privacy without lowering quality far below competitors that don't care about consumers.
> Google keeps their data private because they've already secured their advertising/search territory.
That is one possible self-interested reason for them to keep the data private. They could also just care deeply about guarding user data they collect. This could be for either selfish or unselfish reasons -- it's both good business and moral. It's very hard to tell from the outside, because their actions would look largely the same either way.
Personally I think it's pretty naive to believe any company does any thing for a single reason. There are a constellation of reasons, some more important than others.
It seems like Facebook gave away that information in hopes of developing a more engaging walled garden with 3rd party help, and perhaps some naivety.
> I'm guessing Facebook has the technical expertise to allow 3rd parties to run aggregate (non identifying) queries on the consenting users' data on servers they control and only allowing certain aggregated data, as well as limiting the number and type of queries 3rd parties are running.
This is a very challenging problem - multiple "non-identifying" queries can actually identify individuals. Differential privacy is the best solution so far, however it's still challenging to guarantee privacy without lowering quality far below competitors that don't care about consumers.