Somebody pointed out that what people “share” on Facebook is a large dose of “Hey, look at me!” and then people are upset when people look at them? WTF?
I think people are objecting to the Facebook assholes mining their phones for any information that can sell, like logging who you call and how long you spend on the phone with them … sheesh!
I’ve said this so often the last couple of weeks I feel like a cracked record, but Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg. Every large and not so large company on the internet uses ad. networks to track their own customers for ‘tailored’ ads. They also share this data for greater coverage. This process is called Multiple Touch Attribution [MTA].
MTA tracks all the points where your data is recorded – websites you visit, purchases you make, the cost of those purchases, etc etc. From all that data they can then profile individuals with a scary degree of accuracy. They may not know your actual name [maybe] but they know enough about the type of person you are to manipulate you. This manipulation mostly takes the form of ads., but Cambridge Analytica showed that it can also be used to manipulate people politically.
The problem with Facebook is that almost every website sports a Facebook share button, or ‘Like’ button etc,. These are all ‘touches’ that track your internet interactions, and that means Facebook’s reach is far wider than simply those people actively interacting /with/ it on its own website.
If you check the privacy statement of WordPress or any other large internet company, you will probably find that it mentions sharing data with both Facebook and Google. The same applies to Amazon although I did manage to track down how to opt out of at least some of this tracking. Unfortunately, the industry body that deals with privacy is self-regulating and voluntary so even if you opt out it won’t mean much.
All this covert surveillance is happening because a) it isn’t illegal and b) a company attitude of ‘everyone’s doing it so I’ll miss out if I don’t’ and c) user ignorance. We want the goodies and don’t want to think too much about how we’re getting them.
Apologies for the long rant but I only recently discovered all this and I’m still shocked.
I am both horrified and fascinated by the amount of data collected by Facebook & others. Yet if we want to order anything online, it cannot be avoided. I do use Facebook, mainly keeping in touch with relations, & the adverts sent to me can sometimes be very amusing, & make me wonder what sort of person the data collectors imagine I am. I don’t think I have ever responded to any advert, yet they still appear. Rather like unsolicited snail mail , occasionally enough deluded people must respond to make it worthwhile. How I long for those far off early internet days, via a dial up system, where everything was fun and friendly, & we were not bombarded with junk because we forgot to click on a button opting out of marketing or whatever.
They’re getting more and more sophisticated in how they do these things. I’ve noticed that if I search for something n 1st Dibs, for example, adverts for similar items suddenly appear on Mike’s computer – I presume because we’re on the same intrnet connection.
I share that nostalgia. The internet had so much promise then, It would democratise the world and set us all free. Hah. Sadly, opting out is next to useless because ‘they’ just say ‘well, no cookies [or whatever] no access’. I can live without Facebook but I can’t give up my online games. 😦
I interviewed at a company a couple years ago, one of many that does online advertising, and they told me that they can not only track your online activity, but in many cases your purchases at brick & mortar stores as well. All this done by a company behind the scenes that you never opted in to do business with…
What amazes me is that this came a shock to anyone who uses social media. When the last thing you Googled shows up as an ad in Facebook that’s a big clue that you’re being watched. I also have loads of Facebook friends that take all.the.quizzes. Once or twice I thought they looked interesting. When I clicked on the link and it asked me to share all.of.everything. I was ambivalent and closed the app. Why does some stupid quiz about my personality need access to my location, my friends list, my date of birth, and other such details about me? No thanks. That people didn’t know that data was being collected for a reason, nefarious or not, baffles me.
I couldn’t agree more. Last year when I was trying to figure out how to use FB, I got suspicious at the amount and style of information they want you to post. To whom are the last books I read really relevant? Or if I have a religion? And do we really need to announce where we went to school? Don’t the people we went to school with already know we were there?
Coincidentally, all of these details /also/ happen to be the kind of things we answer when we provide info for ‘secret questions’ to validate who we are. FB may not be into identity theft but I bet lots of others think it’s Christmas with all this data floating around.
Just because I’m still seething…Google is worse that FB. You can live without it. There’s a search engine called ‘DuckDuckGo’ that has not tracking as the central pillar of its raison d’etre.
It’s not just ads any more. If you have geo-location active on your phone and mention that you just bought a new XX on Facebook, all those bits of disparate data can be used to work out exactly who you are – name, address, phone, credit cards, the lot. Not by humans but by software. The more I learn the angrier I get.
I never switch on the location on my phone. Husband does, & every time we go for a meal/visit somewhere etc he gets asked if he’d like to review the place. He doesn’t mind, the mad fool. My sister on the other hand, is very suspicious of The Internet, treating it like a giant spy, which I suppose it is. At least I don’t do online banking, & I never will, no matter how many times my bank try to say it’s easier.
This article made my hair turn completely grey! lol Just kidding, it was grey already. Seriously though, get your husband to read this article about the location settings on our phones:
Then ask him what benefits he gets from having it on that he can’t get from using some other way. If he’s still dead set on using it, set up your own bank account, separate to his, and keep your fingers crossed. 😦
I just set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. Then I got rid of Google entirely. Check the settings of your browser. You may find that DuckDuckGo is one of the search engines listed. You may have clicked on it by mistake?
My Mazamet 
Somebody pointed out that what people “share” on Facebook is a large dose of “Hey, look at me!” and then people are upset when people look at them? WTF?
I think people are objecting to the Facebook assholes mining their phones for any information that can sell, like logging who you call and how long you spend on the phone with them … sheesh!
LikeLiked by 3 people
I suspect that these are mostly the same people who complained that Facebook silenced them before Facebook caved to their pressure.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 9 people
Love it! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve said this so often the last couple of weeks I feel like a cracked record, but Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg. Every large and not so large company on the internet uses ad. networks to track their own customers for ‘tailored’ ads. They also share this data for greater coverage. This process is called Multiple Touch Attribution [MTA].
MTA tracks all the points where your data is recorded – websites you visit, purchases you make, the cost of those purchases, etc etc. From all that data they can then profile individuals with a scary degree of accuracy. They may not know your actual name [maybe] but they know enough about the type of person you are to manipulate you. This manipulation mostly takes the form of ads., but Cambridge Analytica showed that it can also be used to manipulate people politically.
The problem with Facebook is that almost every website sports a Facebook share button, or ‘Like’ button etc,. These are all ‘touches’ that track your internet interactions, and that means Facebook’s reach is far wider than simply those people actively interacting /with/ it on its own website.
If you check the privacy statement of WordPress or any other large internet company, you will probably find that it mentions sharing data with both Facebook and Google. The same applies to Amazon although I did manage to track down how to opt out of at least some of this tracking. Unfortunately, the industry body that deals with privacy is self-regulating and voluntary so even if you opt out it won’t mean much.
All this covert surveillance is happening because a) it isn’t illegal and b) a company attitude of ‘everyone’s doing it so I’ll miss out if I don’t’ and c) user ignorance. We want the goodies and don’t want to think too much about how we’re getting them.
Apologies for the long rant but I only recently discovered all this and I’m still shocked.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I am both horrified and fascinated by the amount of data collected by Facebook & others. Yet if we want to order anything online, it cannot be avoided. I do use Facebook, mainly keeping in touch with relations, & the adverts sent to me can sometimes be very amusing, & make me wonder what sort of person the data collectors imagine I am. I don’t think I have ever responded to any advert, yet they still appear. Rather like unsolicited snail mail , occasionally enough deluded people must respond to make it worthwhile. How I long for those far off early internet days, via a dial up system, where everything was fun and friendly, & we were not bombarded with junk because we forgot to click on a button opting out of marketing or whatever.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They’re getting more and more sophisticated in how they do these things. I’ve noticed that if I search for something n 1st Dibs, for example, adverts for similar items suddenly appear on Mike’s computer – I presume because we’re on the same intrnet connection.
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I share that nostalgia. The internet had so much promise then, It would democratise the world and set us all free. Hah. Sadly, opting out is next to useless because ‘they’ just say ‘well, no cookies [or whatever] no access’. I can live without Facebook but I can’t give up my online games. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
I imagine they’re all at it. Yahoo in particular even tailors which headlines you get on their homepage.
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Yup. It’s insidious and they have us over a barrel because living like a hermit is no longer an option.
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I interviewed at a company a couple years ago, one of many that does online advertising, and they told me that they can not only track your online activity, but in many cases your purchases at brick & mortar stores as well. All this done by a company behind the scenes that you never opted in to do business with…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seriously? That must mean our credit card details remain as part of the data they track. Bloody hell….
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All your (data)base are belong to us — ZorkerBorg.
The sooner the CME arrives, the better.
And remember, we live in a simulation, so even though you think your data is secure — you ARE the data.
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😀
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I can only say Ouch!
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What amazes me is that this came a shock to anyone who uses social media. When the last thing you Googled shows up as an ad in Facebook that’s a big clue that you’re being watched. I also have loads of Facebook friends that take all.the.quizzes. Once or twice I thought they looked interesting. When I clicked on the link and it asked me to share all.of.everything. I was ambivalent and closed the app. Why does some stupid quiz about my personality need access to my location, my friends list, my date of birth, and other such details about me? No thanks. That people didn’t know that data was being collected for a reason, nefarious or not, baffles me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I couldn’t agree more. Last year when I was trying to figure out how to use FB, I got suspicious at the amount and style of information they want you to post. To whom are the last books I read really relevant? Or if I have a religion? And do we really need to announce where we went to school? Don’t the people we went to school with already know we were there?
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Coincidentally, all of these details /also/ happen to be the kind of things we answer when we provide info for ‘secret questions’ to validate who we are. FB may not be into identity theft but I bet lots of others think it’s Christmas with all this data floating around.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have a Facebook account but I never use it, so I literally didn’t see the patterns. 😦
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Just because I’m still seething…Google is worse that FB. You can live without it. There’s a search engine called ‘DuckDuckGo’ that has not tracking as the central pillar of its raison d’etre.
Vive La Revolution!
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Thanks…I’ll try it. I’m fed up with sites I’ve visited then showing as adverts on google.
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It’s not just ads any more. If you have geo-location active on your phone and mention that you just bought a new XX on Facebook, all those bits of disparate data can be used to work out exactly who you are – name, address, phone, credit cards, the lot. Not by humans but by software. The more I learn the angrier I get.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I never switch on the location on my phone. Husband does, & every time we go for a meal/visit somewhere etc he gets asked if he’d like to review the place. He doesn’t mind, the mad fool. My sister on the other hand, is very suspicious of The Internet, treating it like a giant spy, which I suppose it is. At least I don’t do online banking, & I never will, no matter how many times my bank try to say it’s easier.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This article made my hair turn completely grey! lol Just kidding, it was grey already. Seriously though, get your husband to read this article about the location settings on our phones:
https://www.fastcompany.com/3068846/how-your-location-data-identifies-you-gilad-lotan-privacy
Then ask him what benefits he gets from having it on that he can’t get from using some other way. If he’s still dead set on using it, set up your own bank account, separate to his, and keep your fingers crossed. 😦
LikeLiked by 2 people
For some reason I ended up with ‘DuckDuckGo’ as my default search engine, not sure how that happened…
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I just set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine. Then I got rid of Google entirely. Check the settings of your browser. You may find that DuckDuckGo is one of the search engines listed. You may have clicked on it by mistake?
LikeLiked by 1 person