Very few things get under my skin as much as bullshit like this:
A recent study from Consumer Reports engaged 709 volunteers who provided archives of their Facebook user data. Astonishingly, Consumer Reports discovered that 186,892 different companies transmitted data about these users to Facebook. On average, data from each participant was shared by 2,230 companies, with some users’ data being shared by over 7,000 companies.
Think you’re outside this little net? Think again, Winston Smith:
This examination highlighted a lesser-known form of tracking known as server-to-server tracking, where personal data is transferred directly from a company’s servers to Meta’s servers, alongside the more visible method involving Meta tracking pixels on company websites.
A surprising finding was the pervasive presence of LiveRamp, a data broker, appearing in the data of 96 percent of study participants. The list of companies sharing data with Facebook extends beyond obscure data brokers to include well-known retailers like Home Depot, Macy’s, Walmart, and others, such as Experian and TransUnion’s Neustar, Amazon, Etsy, and PayPal. Notably, LiveRamp did not respond to a request for comment on this matter.
The study’s data came from two main collection types: “events” and “custom audiences.” The latter involves advertisers uploading customer lists to Meta, including email addresses and mobile advertising IDs, to target ads on Meta’s platforms. ‘Events’ describe real-world interactions, like website visits or store purchases, facilitated by Meta’s software in apps, tracking pixels on websites, and server-to-server tracking.
I’ll sum up all this in a simple sentence: if you’ve bought anything online in the past three years, your personal data is everywhere.
Of course, there are the weasels:
Emil Vazquez, a spokesperson for Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, defended the company’s data practices, stating: “We offer a number of transparency tools to help people understand the information that businesses choose to share with us, and manage how it’s used.”
Oh sure. Forgive me for being skeptical about the motives of said weasels, and the companies they work for:
However, Consumer Reports identified issues with these tools, including unclear data provider identities and companies that service advertisers often disregarding user opt-out requests.
I don’t even know what to do about all this — nothing can be done, seems to me.
But the best part of all this — and the reason for my hopelessness — is that of you think that Government isn’t getting their snouts into this data trough, I have a fucking bridge to sell you.
Corporations, no matter how big, always fall straight to their knees every time some government department demands a blowjob. And this circumstance is no different.
I would find it rather flattering that anybody bothers to read my social media pages, or contributes more than zero fucks to what I buy online. When a man grows old and his balls grow cold…
Now you know why Zuck had a hissy fit when Apple instituted an opt-in prompt for application tracking, and defaulted it to being turned off. It greatly reduced Fakebook’s data mining (and data selling) across Apple devices.
Follow the money. Mother Zuker stood to lose Billions if he had to obey the requests of millions of the Little People.
If the product is free, the real product is you.
Equality was the Twentieth Century Myth.
Privacy is the Twenty-First Century Myth.
If we pay for ISP Privacy, will we actually get it?
corporations fall to their knees at the behest of the government? Would Liberty Safe like to comment on that? Oh I’m sorry, it appears as if their mouths are full of government appendages
JQ
hmmm. If you purchase something on line, and then, shortly before ship date, cancel the order, does your purchase data still stay on record?
So if every time you order pork gyoza, you also seem to buy keffiyehs and mezuzehs, will it hurt the algorithm’s feelings?
Asking for a fiend.
.
Facebook allows you to do your thing on their website and makes money from it by selling your data to companies for targeted ads. It is what they do, why complain about it? It is like complaining that credit card companies charge interest. If you don’t want that, don’t use them.
5 years ago, a writer for Gizmodo made use of VPNs to block traffic from Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple, each for a week at a time, then all 5 at once on a 6th week. She documented her experiences here: https://gizmodo.com/tech/goodbye-big-five
Her VPN tracking showed thousands of pings coming from the blocked companies each hour. I can’t imagine it’s gotten any better since then.
someone very wise once said “If [the app} is free, you’re the product.”