How Facebook Sells Your Personal Information

From Discovery News:

One option Facebook is exploring is enhancing ad sales by more effective targeting of increasingly specific demographic groups, using location data from mobile devices and information culled from the site. The company will be targeting members' information more closely, and expects personal data-sharing to double every decade.

"Facebook is the largest opt-in community of individuals in the world, and boasts unparalleled reach," Pasi said. "In English, that means it's likely the largest database of people ever built, and contains more personal data than any other source."

If ever there was a reason to get off facebook....this is it. I'm finally going to close my account.

And it doesn't really matter if you set your account to privacy, because they can mine your information from friends' accounts.

Remember the last time your friends tagged you at a location and posted photos? They were sharing your personal data with Facebook

So that's it. My account closes today. I'm sure the majority of ATS members already eschew Facebook, but I admit I enjoyed keeping in touch with my friends around the world.

Guess i'll just have to convince everyone to join ATS.

Got rid of my facebook 6 years ago.
I still get emails from them asking me to reopen my account.

dont really have to go that far.. u can configure ur devices to provide completely false data in all the avenues facebook collects. yeah it will target you with information it thinks is relevant to you and place u in a demographic of some sort.. but it will be all falsely assessed as their databases are corrupted with false info to begin with.

fake ip's, fake gps positioning, fake names, fake email addresses. i mean.. who says you have to put in ANY real information into your device or online accounts at all? u dont! if ur really paranoid or worried about what they collect and how they use it.. then just realise that u dont have to put one iota of your real personal information into their signup forms etc.

It's disappointing that there are no popular social networking websites without intrusive privacy policies. It seems people are oblivious to the idea everything they share is being collected by companies like Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc. The problem is that we don't really have a choice between social networks as they all employ similar privacy policies.

reply to post by smyleegrl


I never joined Facebook; and from all the stories I have heard over the years; (including this one) I am glad I never did.

I really like to write and receive letters; something to hold on to; refer to and be sentimental about. Yes...you read it right...(old-fashioned) letters!

reply to post by 0mage


I'm pretty sure you need to confirm your account via phone number/text message, which ties you back to your real identity. This is how it was when I signed up like 7 years ago, so I'd imagine they have some grotesque variation of it in place today. It is, as you suggested, a good idea to use a fake name, provide a fake address, and otherwise mask your identity, but if you're going to take all of those measures why bother having an account anyway? Just keep in touch with your friends via email/skype/etc and get off of Facebook.

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
reply to post by 0mage

 

I'm pretty sure you need to confirm your account via phone number/text message, which ties you back to your real identity. This is how it was when I signed up like 7 years ago, so I'd imagine they have some grotesque variation of it in place today. It is, as you suggested, a good idea to use a fake name, provide a fake address, and otherwise mask your identity, but if you're going to take all of those measures why bother having an account anyway? Just keep in touch with your friends via email/skype/etc and get off of Facebook.

Right. Plus with all the ex's, that website is more drama than shakespeare.

I joined facebook mainly to keep in touch with old friends who live far away. Its nice to see pictures of them and their families, to hear about the good (and bad) news in their lives, etc.

But when I close out my account this afternoon, I'll send my friends my email address and we'll keep in touch that way. I'm just not comfortable with the invasiveness of everything.

reply to post by DestroyDestroyDestroy


I got like 10 facebook accounts, all were confirmed through email only.

reply to post by 0mage


But is it really worth all that kinda seems like a colossal waste of time to jump through so many hoops

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

I never joined Facebook; and from all the stories I have heard over the years; (including this one) I am glad I never did.

I really like to write and receive letters; something to hold on to; refer to and be sentimental about. Yes...you read it right...(old-fashioned) letters!

I wast just about to add that people may have to resort to sending letters again if this becomes too intrusive! I have many fond memories of pen-pals growing up.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Good call. If you value your privacy then it's the only sane course of action to take.

I've been FB-free since March 2012 and do not miss it. One thing which has surprised me however is the social stigma. If you don't have a facebook account, there are a growing number of people out there who think you're some sort of freak. I can tell you that NOT having a facebook account hurts you when it comes to the online dating game. I ditched that too, and don't miss it. It's amazing how the quality of ones' dating improves once you take it offline.

If folks decide to remain on FB out of convenience but don't want to feed the database, then one action you can take is to load up your browsers with anti-facebook tracking extensions/addons. I'm using Chrome as my primary browser and here are the ones I'm using:

Adblock Plus
Collusion for Chrome
Disconnect
DoNotTrackMe
G Disconnect
IBA (Interest-Based Advertising) Opt-Out
Keep My Opt-Outs
Keep MORE Opt-Outs
Twitter Disconnect

Sadly, I still have to use Twitter to pimp my wares but the Twitter Disconnect extension means that the Big T can't track my cyber-movements. Twitter has a database too... I believe there is a Facebook Disconnect extension too. Most, if not all of these extensions can be found for Firefox, Opera and Safari. There is no impact on your normal web usage from using these extensions and they are all free. It's a cheap and effective way to give FB the finger.

Originally posted by DestroyDestroyDestroy
reply to post by 0mage

 

I'm pretty sure you need to confirm your account via phone number/text message, which ties you back to your real identity. This is how it was when I signed up like 7 years ago, so I'd imagine they have some grotesque variation of it in place today. It is, as you suggested, a good idea to use a fake name, provide a fake address, and otherwise mask your identity, but if you're going to take all of those measures why bother having an account anyway? Just keep in touch with your friends via email/skype/etc and get off of Facebook.

many ppl believe this.. but in google/gmail's case all you have to do is read the fine print... there is a tiny link under it all with the option to SKIP adding a fone number Also.. u dont HAVE to put your real country into signup forms.

do not create a youtube account manually.. create a gmail account and a youtube account is automatically generated.. u just login to utube with the gmail account credentials u just made.. try it.