Most people forget that when they download an app or sign-in to a website using their Facebook login, they’re giving those companies a look into their Facebook profiles. Your profile contains a lot of personal information that can often include your email address and phone number, but frequently also your work history and your current location. And most people don’t realise that if you’re sharing any of that data with your friends then apps used by those friends can see that data too!
Advertisers, Facebook app developers, and Facebook ad tech partners don’t get a direct look at your personal data. They won’t see that my name is Jim Edwards, my phone number is 07xxxx, I’m male, and I work at Business Insider — Facebook hashes and anonymises all the data to protect user’s privacy and gives it back to partners in bulk so they can’t identify individuals — but nevertheless, this data is being used in order to serve you better-targeted ads.
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If you’re worried about your privacy on Facebook, you can do two things:
- Opt out of ad tracking
- Look up the list of app companies that are logged in to your Facebook account, and edit that list.
The second step — which shows you just how much info you’re giving away to companies that you’ve probably forgotten about — can be rather alarming if you haven’t done it in a while
We’ll deal with the ad-tracking first, as that is easiest.
You can comfort yourself a little bit with the knowledge that the ads being targeted at you are coming anonymously and in bulk, at everyone who is in some way similar to you. They aren’t literally being targeted at you personally, even if it feels that way.
1. Click on the down arrow at the far right of your Facebook page.
2. Go to the settings.
3. Click on the Ads button.
Read the full story, click here
Business Insider by Jim Edwards
