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Shares of Acxiom fell roughly 11 percent in premarket trading Thursday after Facebook ended its partnership with the data broker as result of the social media’s data privacy scandal.
As a result, Acxiom warned 2019 revenue could be hit by as much as $25 million.
Facebook announced it would shut down its third-party data provider division Wednesday as part of a wider effort to clean up data practices following a massive breach. More than 50 million Facebook profiles were harvested by an app for data, which passed the information onto London-based elections consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
“While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement Wednesday.
Facebook informed Acxiom that the Facebook Partner Categories will be discontinued over the next several months, the company said in a statement published Wednesday after the markets closed. While Acxiom’s guidance for this year won’t change, the Arkansas-based company lowered its 2019 fiscal guidance and said total revenue and profitability could take as much as a $25 million hit.
Acxiom provides data for “people-based” marketing according to its website. The stock was trading near $25, down 10.9 percent, as of 8:37 a.m. ET.
The Facebook allegations have drawn concern concern over whether data was used to try and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit vote.
Shares of Facebook have also taken a hit since the news came out, and are down 13 percent for the month.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted an explanation online last week.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” Zuckerberg said in a statement on his Facebook page.
