12 ms·

I just counted and Facebook tells me that 1,147 advertisers have uploaded a contact list that contained my info, specifically found on https://www.facebook.com/

I just counted and Facebook tells me that 1,147 advertisers have uploaded a contact list that contained my info, specifically found on https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_s... : These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number. Want to know what's funny? The email address I use for Facebook was created only for Facebook. I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. The inbox for that account only contains emails from Facebook. I have never given Facebook my phone number. I have never clicked on an ad in Facebook. I have never connected an app with my Facebook account. _Facebook_ itself is the only entity which has ever had my contact info associated with my account. So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? I can't wait to see what the explanation is when this feature launches end of the month.

arrty88 8y ago
How? Is it public on your profile page? Have you ever used facebook apps or oauth/single sign on?
- chrsstrm 8y ago
  Nope, contact info is hidden. Never authed with another app or service. The idea of super cookies doesn't play either, I only use Facebook in a separate browser that doesn't get used for anything else, and these days it only gets used in Firefox using the Facebook container. I've always treated Facebook like the plague and never let it come close to my normal activities. I went to great lengths to not let them figure out who I was, other than the graph info they have on my friends.
  - spc476 8y ago
    You were probably tracked via IP address. Even without a static IP address, it probably doesn't change that much. With so many Facebook "like" icons everywhere, it doesn't really matter what browser you use, or if you are logged in or not.
  - chatmasta 8y ago
    Data brokers sell contact lists that advertisers upload to facebook for targeting. Maybe this has changed, but last I checked, you could upload lists of emails, phone numbers, and/or facebook IDs. All you need is for one of those identifiers (email, phone number, facebook ID) to show up on a list somewhere. Since you say your email is unique and only used for Facebook, it's unlikely that was used for targeting. Your phone number could be acquired from somebody else syncing their contact list to some app or service. Your facebook ID could be acquired from you authenticating to an app or service via facebook, or it could be scraped from public group pages.
RunawayGalaxy 8y ago
So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? Hint: Cookie Monster loves these
- chrsstrm 8y ago
  I always use Facebook in a sterile browser that doesn't get used for anything else. Once Firefox released the container feature I've only ever used Facebook inside the Facebook container.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    If you used it prior to this feature, is it too late?
  - RunawayGalaxy 8y ago
    Do you have a dedicated VPN exclusively for browsing Facebook too?
  - grogenaut 8y ago
    https://panopticlick.eff.org https://panopticlick.eff.org test your container with that.
    - thecatspaw 8y ago
      > Does your browser unblock 3rd parties that promise to honor Do Not Track? no Why does that get a fail mark? In my opinion such promises are worth absolutely nothing. Does that compromise my anonymity somehow by disabling them?
      - icebraining 8y ago
        I don't think the fail mark in that case is supposed to mean you're easier to track; it's rather related to the EFF's position on DNT: "Setting your browser to unblock ads from websites that commit to respecting Do Not Track rewards companies that are respecting user privacy, incentivizing more companies to respect Do Not Track in order to have their ads shown at all. By preserving privacy-friendly ads, sites that rely on advertising funding can continue to thrive without adjusting their core business model, even as they respect users’ privacy choices." https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#do-not-track https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#do-not-track Claiming you're not protected because you've decided to block all does seem deceptive, though.
DevKoala 8y ago
Identity graphs built by syncing IP addresses, cookies and device id’s acrosss multiple vendors. You don’t need to click an ad to leave a footprint. You just need to go online.
- panarky 8y ago
  This doesn't explain how third parties would get his email address. Facebook claims they don't disclose it. Companies upload lists of email address they already have for Facebook to find similar audiences. If he only used this email for Facebook, then only Facebook should have it.
  - jahewson 8y ago
    Facebook says the list contains “info about you”. There’s no reason to assume that has to be an email address. Your full name and DoB will do, read the docs for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpref=faq_content https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpr...
  - DevKoala 8y ago
    Third parties don’t know his email address per say. A third party has hold of the OP’s info through a different source. This information in the third party DB is linked to a cookie or device id, or other means of digital footprint. Facebook onboards the third party data by syncing the ID they have for the OP under their origin, with the ID from the third party’s origin through a process called cookie syncing, which allows data from one origin to be pushed to another. Cookie syncing is how it is done on the web. For mobile, it is device ID syncing. To sync multiple devices, web + mobile, you use IP affinity + geo, or other means of inference and find common patterns through the stream of data. It is easy to link devices having access to the ad stream of an exchange like AT&T’s APPNEXUS for example. These are practices that were standard five or so years ago.
- jahewson 8y ago
  Or you know, just name and date of birth.
dwighttk 8y ago
I’m in the same boat. Facebook has certainly (let’s say 85%, I’m open to another explanation) connected my Facebook account to an email address that I’ve never given them and sent ads to me based on companies giving them that other email address.
gammateam 8y ago
A) The people you friended uploaded their contact information B) People searched your name on Facebook C) Facebook creates ghost profiles with all these details until it has enough confidence to sync it with an new/existing Facebook profile
- chrsstrm 8y ago
  The $64,000 question is if they eventually are able to connect a ghost profile to a real profile, then shouldn't that data be available in the data export of the real profile? I've downloaded all my data before but just kicked off another one to check again. If someone in the EU was in the same situation I'd like to see what their data download looks like given the new privacy and data rules under GDPR.
  - sexyrouter 8y ago
    That's the data you never provided them. That data is in blackbox ML system which is exclusively for ad targeting, and it can't be described :) that's the Facebook's defense. GDPR doesn't cover the intermediate info AI/ML generates on you.
  - r3bl 8y ago
    > If someone in the EU was in the same situation I'd like to see what their data download looks like given the new privacy and data rules under GDPR. Once an EU citizen contacts them and requests the dump, they get redirected to the same tool. You have to explicitly bug them and quote the article 15 (of the GDPR) a few times to receive a different dump. Disclosure: I haven't done this personally, but I have talked to people who did and read their interactions with Facebook. I can't guarantee that this info is still up-to-date, since that happened months after GDPR went into effect.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
beaugunderson 8y ago
> Typically this information is your email address or phone number. Which means they are also using other types of information to identify you, and since your email and phone number can't be used, it must be those other information types. I'd love to know what they are. My count is 11,885 advertisers, for what it's worth. It looks like car dealerships are the majority of them... I've never bought a car from a dealership. Very odd.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  Mine is exclusively car dealerships. Are DMV records public?
  - groby_b 8y ago
    Either that, or the DMV sells them. (I use one-off e-mail addresses, and dmv@mydomain.com is _really_ popular)
    - joering2 8y ago
      Absolutely DMV sells everything on you. State I live winter time - Florida - when I got speeding ticket, less than 4 days later my mailbox was full of ticket schools’ solicitations. They knew everything about me and my ticket. They even knew time and street and speed I was pulled over and cleverly used that in marketing titles: “clocked 67 in 40 miles with highschool on the corner of Oak and Main St? withiut knowledgeable attorney that can cost you 90 days in county jail. Call now”. Its even worse - a friend also in Florida had DUI. Day three a lawyer knocks on his door bringing pizza and beers (!) to sit down discuss his case for free evaluation! Totally unsolicited knock at his door.
      - will_brown 8y ago
        That’s not the DMV selling anything, it’s the clerk of court...everyday they publish a list of new cases (public record) and your ticket is attached to the case and the ticket contains all relevant data (name, address, license #, dob, charge, etc...) and an added bonus the court will also link your dmv driving record to the ticket case so the “scrapers” get your dmv record anyway (for free). They do the same for foreclosure cases.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
You only ever have to connect to the system once, even accidentally, and it will figure the rest out. In spycraft you can do everything right, except that one tiny mess up and you're burned. I find it interesting given what you likely know about the surveillance economy that you're incredulous to the concept that you know and have covered every possible vector. A single person is no match for the surveillance economy.
- chrsstrm 8y ago
  I'm certainly not hiding my identity behind layers of personas because my life is at stake. I do believe my data has value and that I shouldn't be giving it away to a consumer service for them to monetize at will. Have I taken every available measure? No. Have I made it reasonably difficult for Facebook to figure out who I am, to the point that I'm not endlessly hounded by advertisers and tracked across the depths of the net? Yes. But if we've come to the point where surveillance and social media have merged to the point that no one can post notes to their family and friends without leaving a trail of state-level surveillance data that is kept forever, well then we've all already lost. The IPO of Move Fast and Break Things will continue to haunt everyone for decades to come in ways we haven't even imagined yet.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    But if we've come to the point where surveillance and social media have merged to the point that no one can post notes to their family and friends without leaving a trail of state-level surveillance data that is kept forever, well then we've all already lost. I can assure you, the advertising industry knows vastly more about US persons than any state-level surveillance does.
    - mrexroad 8y ago
      Why do you think they’re allowed to exist, and haven’t been legislated out of existence? Public-private partnerships provide a great model for state-level actors to effectively do what they aren’t “allowed” to do...
jahewson 8y ago
Facebook allows advertisers to upload lists of their existing contacts to target. This can be some simple combination of name, address, date of birth, gender, etc. It’s not limited to email and phone number. The advertiser may themselves have sourced some of this information from third parties based on other information which they have about you - such as your actual phone number or email address. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpref=faq_content https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpr...
elicash 8y ago
Every week I actually go through and remove a couple dozen advertisers who upload my contact data to Facebook so that they can't target me. It's annoying, and unlike some other features Facebook doesn't allow me to simply not allow this type of advertising. Every week I do this. FB lets me disallow OTHER types of advertising. But not this type.
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  Why? You're not removing their knowledge of you, just their ability to target you. It doesn't sound like you're doing this for grins, what do you get out of it?
  - elicash 8y ago
    It's the "if everyone did this..." rule. I play my own part in this massive economy that exists of selling data to be used in Facebook ads (Google and other big tech companies do it, too). To me, it's the number one most dangerous thing that has happened to the web. It's my belief that you can make a direct tie from this type of advertising to the layoffs of journalists. That's a more complicated argument than I have time and space for here, but that's why it's an important issue to me -- I think it's a problem for democracy. Edit: I also tell people I do this to spread the word about the practice and FB's failure to provide proper privacy tools -- in person, but also in forums like I did here.
- rypskar 8y ago
  Isn't that what the setting "adds based on data from partners" are for? (guessing what it will be named in English) I have set it to not allow and have never seen an add from any of the 8 companies who have uploaded my contact data
  - elicash 8y ago
    No. Here's what the info box says about that existing privacy feature: "Products that are provided by the Facebook Companies, including WhatsApp and Oculus, as well as Facebook Products like Facebook, Instagram and Messenger." That has nothing to do with non-Facebook companies. It's something else entirely.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
djohnston 8y ago
Either you forgot something you did in the past X years or you've uncovered a massive conspiracy. I know where I'd put my money. I mean, to say you've NEVER clicked an ad, even accidentally? I doubt it, internet stranger.
- EGreg 8y ago
  I don’t. He seems determined. My money’s on the stranger! How do we settle this?
  - djohnston 8y ago
    he should give us the email address .. lol to be clear OP, i'm not trying to be mean or anything. i don't remember what i had for lunch yesterday. it seems that unless you took technical means to validate that everything you said is true, it's quite likely there was an errant click, an errant sharing of the email to a friend, etc, etc.
- atwebb 8y ago
  Does Facebook not sell the email/contact information? If so, those lists are going to make the rounds, 1,100 seems excessive though.
  - Gustomaximus 8y ago
    Also consider it could have been an employee grabbing contact/details lists and selling them.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  In case of Facebook ads, you can check advertisers whose ads you clicked on the same page where you check who uploaded your data. In my case it shows... 2x more than I expected, but looking at the names, most of those were most likely pictures of t-shirts, or funny videos, that I just clicked to check out.
  - djohnston 8y ago
bdibs 8y ago
There are many fields that you could be searched for beyond just those two. Your name, street address, city, state, etc.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
flukus 8y ago
Maybe some sort of auto-complete leakage?
mgpc 8y ago
Is the email address something someone else might enter by accident? I constantly get emails intended for someone who has the same surname and first initial as me (and presumably a very similar email). She signs up for all sorts of things and accidentally enters my email (it's quite annoying). I even got her plane tickets once. And I can see loads of FB advertiser matches that are clearly her rather than me.
- justinclift 8y ago
  Have you had a chat to her about it?
mehrdadn 8y ago
I'm pretty sure these are nonsense. I've seen the exact same advertisers listed for me and a friend and those advertisers have nothing remotely related to us.
jammygit 8y ago
"There are no advertisers in this category right now. Learn more." I wonder why the massive difference
reaperducer 8y ago
Want to know what's funny? The email address I use for Facebook was created only for Facebook. I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. Yep. Me, too. I use the e-mail address facebook@domainiown.example, so it would never be accepted by any of my actual contacts. They all use my real e-mail address. But somehow Facebook says that e-mail address was uploaded by Maserati of Scottsdale (never been to that part of Arizona, and can't afford that kind of car), Mini of Freeport (I've never heard of Freeport), Sunrise Ford NoHo (I have no idea where this is. North Hollywood, maybe? If it is, I don't even live in that state), Crain Kia of Bentonville (Arkansas, maybe? Never been to Arkansas), Bernard's Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (No idea where that is), Drive Toyota (Is that Toyota corporate? I've never owned a Japanese car), Land Rover of San Antonio (I've been to San Antonio once, and that was before Facebook even existed). So I second the OP's suspicion that Facebook is giving out my e-mail address to advertisers/spammers/partners. I sure hope they didn't pay a premium for Facebook's "targeting," because it is evidently atrocious.
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  I’ve never set foot in Arizona but I have Maserati of Scottsdale, too. I’m guessing some idiot working in their ad department doesn’t understand targeted advertising and uploaded a leaked list of emails.
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    Me too. I have a facebook@mydomain email address that I only use to log into Facebook and my "advertisers who use a contact list" has all those same car dealerships (and no other advertisers). There must be one company that paid Facebook for email addresses and then resold them to auto dealerships.
  - nitrogen 8y ago
    It could be some third party ad firm trying to generate "lookalike" audiences. They could run some algorithm on their random email lists based on known customers, then upload the resulting list to Facebook.
- reitanqild 8y ago
pasta 8y ago
I don't have a Facebook account but I'm sure I have a profile because other uploaded my contact info, uploader pictures with my face, mentioned my name and so on. It's almost impossible to hide from Facebook. So you might hide your email address but how do you know others did?
Legogris 8y ago
Did you add your phone number to your account? Or have a WhatsApp/Instagram/Tinder account that does? Contact info can be more than just e-mail.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  If it's a phone number you don't even have to do it yourself. If any of your friends have linked their contacts entry of you to your Facebook account and have one of Facebook's apps installed, Facebook can now know your phone number. Edit: They didn't have the phone number, according to the data exporter. Pretty plausible explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490
drewmol 8y ago
TL;DR they swindled your contact info from users, purchased it and/or traded for it. >This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Why do you think so many apps want to extract your phone contact list if not to sell? Have you ever given that phone number out, even if only to one friend or relative? If your name and phone # are saved in their smartphone contact list, they may have been using a smartphone with an adware OS designed by the largest data monitizer on earth bundled with additional spyware preinstalled from the manufacturer, service provider, plus 10 of the highest bidders. Those advertisers could have bought it from your cc issuer, merchant, loyalty card issuer, car dealership or bank as part of a bundle with your transaction history. It could have come with a location history package from your mobile service provider or it could have come compliments of Equifax. Sure, it could have been collected way back in 2017 or whenever while FB was still giving the data out for free. There are plenty of totally innocent explainations... If it turns out next month that those 1,147 advertisers are all just Alphabet companies and the contact list was uploaded by their partner, Facebook, you'll sure feel stupid for jumping to conclusions. /s
ahje 8y ago
For the record, I also use a unique email address for my Facebook account and it was NOT uploaded by any advertisers. Just wanted to put this here in order to point out that this might not affect everyone.
seizethecheese 8y ago
Have you used “log in with Facebook”? That definitely exposes your email address, and then it can be saved and resold.
Vinnl 8y ago
It's sad that it's so buried [1], because I think the theory you mention deep in the thread is most plausible: people scraped your username, guessed the email address <username>@facebook.com and uploaded that, and Facebook associates that email address with your account. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490
CannisterFlux 8y ago
Unless you self host, maybe your email provider sold you out? They would know that you created it.
ikornaselur 8y ago
I've had a profile for 10 years by now with multiple email addresses associated to it.. including my phone number. I just opened that website for the first time, expecting to see thousands of advertisers, but I can't find any number. On the other hand, the list there had 68 'advertisers', most of which I recognise, some that I'm glad hiding, but I don't believe there's only 68 after all this time??? Especially since at least 10 of those were duplicates (like different countries for the same brand) Am I missing something? I'm just looking at "Who use a contact list added to Facebook"
hdkrgr 8y ago
On a related note, I see exactly what advertisers someone else has interacted with: As you do, I use an alias email for my facebook account. I use it for my facebook login and nothing else (although I do receive the email that arrives there). Now it happens that there's some guy on the other side of the world who has a name similar to mine who keeps erroneously putting down _my alias email_ address as his email for a lot of services (maybe he just sometimes uses the wrong major email provider after the @). I know A LOT about that guys life based on the countless emails I get instead of him. (loan offers, negotiations for used car sales, church group meeting protocols, what politicians he donates to...) Turns out, the advertiser info FB has on "me" is actually on him (or >95% at least.)
- tfandango 8y ago
  Very interesting. I too have a doppelgänger, several in fact, due to me getting an early gmail address. I have seen all sorts of things, car insurance, memberships, a renovation agreement for the condo, amazon purchases, etc. His gym even came after me because he forgot to pay one month. I used to reply, explaining they had the wrong email, and never once, ever, got a response.
datenhorst 8y ago
You should contact those advertisers and ask what where they got your info from. It's about time that the backlash hits all those advertisers who'll happily use what facebook has to offer, and not only fb themselves.
chillydawg 8y ago
You in the the EU? Sue em.
emilfihlman 8y ago
>I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. Not directly, perhaps. >The inbox for that account only contains emails from Facebook. I have never given Facebook my phone number. Your phone number can easily be scraped or harvested from other users who give Facebook your information. >I have never clicked on an ad in Facebook. VERY unlikely. >I have never connected an app with my Facebook account. Possible. >_Facebook_ itself is the only entity which has ever had my contact info associated with my account. Very unlikely. >So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? User error. The point is that "I would never do that!" is not a valid defense. Humans make errors, you are not an exception to this rule and leaking data is made very, very easy.
seszett 8y ago
In my case I am really surprised a lot by what I found. I created my Facebook account just three years ago and only ever use it with a few family members. I also use a Facebook-specific email address. Most personalisation and privacy settings are locked down, etc. Well, how to explain that under the list of "Advertisers who use a contact list added to Facebook" the only company there is the National Bank of Canada, with which I had a bank account from 2007 to 2008? I didn't have a Facebook account until almost 10 years later, didn't have the same phone number or address (that was in Canada and I had been back in France for a long time when I signed up to Facebook) and didn't even own the domain of my Facebook email address then. Also, for some reason they are listed twice, once as Banque Nationale du Canada, and once as National Bank of Canada. I don't think they had anything else to link to my account than just my real name.
ElectronShak 8y ago
I think unlike Google, Facebook ad targeting does not only look at you / your profile / your clicks, but also at your friends, and what they are interested in, they then use this information to Infer or predict what things you might be interested in. So yes, you might not have interacted with any ads or apps, but people in your social graph have.
aembleton 8y ago
Fascinating. I have loads of US car dealerships such as Land Rover San Antonio, Mini of Freeport and South Motors Infiniti. I've never been to the US! This is the same email that I use everywhere, so its easy for them to get and stuff into Facebook, but surely they are then paying to advertise to someone who isn't able to buy from them. Or maybe this is then further filtered based upon geo location. Maybe, as soon as I land in San Antonio I'd start receiving Land Rover adverts because they've provided my email address. Incredible how many of them are US car dealerships.
- hopler 8y ago
  Based on commercial te in this thread, clearly these dealerships did something shady or bought a list from someone shady. If Facebook was concerned about user experience and ad quality, they would detect cases like this and block those advertisers.
pergadad 8y ago
Clicking on "advertiser's" on the preferences page gives me a "no internet connection" error within the Facebook mobile web app. Don't get that anywhere else .
chiefalchemist 8y ago
re: "The email address I use for Facebook was created only for Facebook. I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. The inbox for that account only contains emails from Facebook." Per the book "Chaos Monkeys", as well as others sources I would presume since, that single signal is not a "unique key". There are plenty of other ways being used to tie you to your devices (plural! as in, you're a known / constant as you move from phone to laptop to tablet, and so on.) Mind you, neither is new, but Dragnet Nation and Chaos Monkeys are both insightful, and if you take your privacy and liberty serious frightening. https://www.antoniogarciamartinez.com/chaos-monkeys/ https://www.antoniogarciamartinez.com/chaos-monkeys/ http://juliaangwin.com/dragnet-nation-available-now/ http://juliaangwin.com/dragnet-nation-available-now/ Of the two, CM is the written to be more entertaining.
renholder 8y ago
Consideration: Facebook Pixel is still tracking you across the web, so it's easy to correlate other accounts from other companies to your account; not to mention that other services are probably consuming the Facebook Pixel service. They can build their own databases, referencing your Facebook correlation information, and share that back to Facebook. So, let's say you have a Facebook account and go to "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com". If "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com" implements Facebook Pixel (or has a way to consume it) and you buy something from them, giving your phone number, address, etc., then your other information is automatically correlatable just by those two points of data. The fact that 1,147 other companies have your information tells me that there was probably an intermediary advertising company between "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com" and Facebook, so that intermediary could sell your information to anyone and everyone and, once it's on the "advertising market", it's ripe for correlation from other companies - Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. All that's need is at least one, consistent, correlatable point of data - say your mac address or your browser's established fingerprint and you're "fair game" for targeting on the "advertising market". (Insert Bill Hicks' reference to Marketing and Advertising[1] here.) [1] - https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY
- jstanley 8y ago
  But he has never given that email address to anyone other than Facebook.
  - stedaniels 8y ago
    I think their trying to say.. But Facebook knows the other email addresses you use, due to using Facebook Pixel. The advertiser targets the other email addresses, not the one you use for Facebook.
xg15 8y ago
Not excusing their behavior, but could it be Facebook have not matched you using the email address you have given them but your real address, which they have found out via shadow profiles? E.g., they know you'd like them to assume that chrsstrm123@throwaway.example.com is your email address (and they do you the favor in all publicly visible parts of your profile), but they also see that most of the people in your friends list haven an entry for "chrsstrm456@example.net" in their address book, filed under your name. So they'll simply add both addresses as keys to your account.
- pc86 8y ago
  With the pervasiveness and relatively well known existence of shadow profiles for people not on Facebook, it makes sense that Facebook would know some information about you that you haven't shared with it. I'm curious why Facebook would link a shadow profile about you to your real profile though, even if it knew with relative certainty you were one in the same. I can see no benefit other than advertising (which doesn't really necessitate them telling you in this way) but it seems that it could pretty easily lead to the misunderstanding above where folks impugn nefarious motives to Facebook that aren't accurate.
- thinkling 8y ago
  Or are you using your real mobile number for 2-factor auth on Facebook? You're probably also giving that out to businesses you have a relationship with. And most people don't have a second fake phone number to give out to avoid matching. It's a bit like grocery store loyalty cards: you can give the grocery store bogus contact info when you sign up for one, but the first time you swipe a credit card to pay for your groceries, the store gets your name and a unique ID linked to you (the card #) that can be used to match your profile in (say) an Acxiom database.
- throwaway53532 8y ago
  Look at the newest post about Carta in the stocks reddit. Companies are buying your data from other companies to do targeted advertising campaigns.
- throwaway53534 8y ago
cascom 8y ago
It says “...or phone number” my guess is all businesses that have your phone number
dwild 8y ago
I use mine everywhere and yet I only have less than 80 advertisers there, a good portion of which I have registered on their website (Ubisoft, Airbnb, Bell, Candy Crush, Nintendo, Hilton, HP, Netflix, Particle, CBS, EVE Online, KnowRoaming, Seeed Studio, Uber Eats, Goodfood and plenty others...).
bluetidepro 8y ago
Is there a script or way to auto click remove on all of these?
joshstrange 8y ago
I really want to scrape this page/data and get alerts when a new entity is added. Like I see the company that makes the Sous Vide device I got for Christmas. Prior to the gift I had never heard of this brand (it's a good brand, I just hadn't done any research) but they show up in the list. I would bet I got added after I setup a user account with them but I would love to know how quick that process is. Getting a push notification would be pretty cool to see if it happens in batches or more or less immediately after I give some my contact info.
throwaway53532 8y ago
Companies are buying your data from other companies to do targeted advertising campaigns. Look at this post in the stocks reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spreadsheet_link/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spread...
corobo 8y ago
> So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? Excellent question. I am also very intrigued. I'm gonna ask them all. https://cohan.io/activate-the-gdpr-robots/ https://cohan.io/activate-the-gdpr-robots/

arrty88 8y ago

How? Is it public on your profile page? Have you ever used facebook apps or oauth/single sign on?

chrsstrm 8y ago
Nope, contact info is hidden. Never authed with another app or service. The idea of super cookies doesn't play either, I only use Facebook in a separate browser that doesn't get used for anything else, and these days it only gets used in Firefox using the Facebook container. I've always treated Facebook like the plague and never let it come close to my normal activities. I went to great lengths to not let them figure out who I was, other than the graph info they have on my friends.
- spc476 8y ago
  You were probably tracked via IP address. Even without a static IP address, it probably doesn't change that much. With so many Facebook "like" icons everywhere, it doesn't really matter what browser you use, or if you are logged in or not.
- chatmasta 8y ago
  Data brokers sell contact lists that advertisers upload to facebook for targeting. Maybe this has changed, but last I checked, you could upload lists of emails, phone numbers, and/or facebook IDs. All you need is for one of those identifiers (email, phone number, facebook ID) to show up on a list somewhere. Since you say your email is unique and only used for Facebook, it's unlikely that was used for targeting. Your phone number could be acquired from somebody else syncing their contact list to some app or service. Your facebook ID could be acquired from you authenticating to an app or service via facebook, or it could be scraped from public group pages.

RunawayGalaxy 8y ago

So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? Hint: Cookie Monster loves these

chrsstrm 8y ago
I always use Facebook in a sterile browser that doesn't get used for anything else. Once Firefox released the container feature I've only ever used Facebook inside the Facebook container.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  If you used it prior to this feature, is it too late?
- RunawayGalaxy 8y ago
  Do you have a dedicated VPN exclusively for browsing Facebook too?
- grogenaut 8y ago
  https://panopticlick.eff.org https://panopticlick.eff.org test your container with that.
  - thecatspaw 8y ago
    > Does your browser unblock 3rd parties that promise to honor Do Not Track? no Why does that get a fail mark? In my opinion such promises are worth absolutely nothing. Does that compromise my anonymity somehow by disabling them?
    - icebraining 8y ago
      I don't think the fail mark in that case is supposed to mean you're easier to track; it's rather related to the EFF's position on DNT: "Setting your browser to unblock ads from websites that commit to respecting Do Not Track rewards companies that are respecting user privacy, incentivizing more companies to respect Do Not Track in order to have their ads shown at all. By preserving privacy-friendly ads, sites that rely on advertising funding can continue to thrive without adjusting their core business model, even as they respect users’ privacy choices." https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#do-not-track https://panopticlick.eff.org/about#do-not-track Claiming you're not protected because you've decided to block all does seem deceptive, though.

DevKoala 8y ago

Identity graphs built by syncing IP addresses, cookies and device id’s acrosss multiple vendors. You don’t need to click an ad to leave a footprint. You just need to go online.

panarky 8y ago
This doesn't explain how third parties would get his email address. Facebook claims they don't disclose it. Companies upload lists of email address they already have for Facebook to find similar audiences. If he only used this email for Facebook, then only Facebook should have it.
- jahewson 8y ago
  Facebook says the list contains “info about you”. There’s no reason to assume that has to be an email address. Your full name and DoB will do, read the docs for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpref=faq_content https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpr...
- DevKoala 8y ago
  Third parties don’t know his email address per say. A third party has hold of the OP’s info through a different source. This information in the third party DB is linked to a cookie or device id, or other means of digital footprint. Facebook onboards the third party data by syncing the ID they have for the OP under their origin, with the ID from the third party’s origin through a process called cookie syncing, which allows data from one origin to be pushed to another. Cookie syncing is how it is done on the web. For mobile, it is device ID syncing. To sync multiple devices, web + mobile, you use IP affinity + geo, or other means of inference and find common patterns through the stream of data. It is easy to link devices having access to the ad stream of an exchange like AT&T’s APPNEXUS for example. These are practices that were standard five or so years ago.
jahewson 8y ago
Or you know, just name and date of birth.

dwighttk 8y ago

I’m in the same boat. Facebook has certainly (let’s say 85%, I’m open to another explanation) connected my Facebook account to an email address that I’ve never given them and sent ads to me based on companies giving them that other email address.

gammateam 8y ago

A) The people you friended uploaded their contact information B) People searched your name on Facebook C) Facebook creates ghost profiles with all these details until it has enough confidence to sync it with an new/existing Facebook profile

chrsstrm 8y ago
The $64,000 question is if they eventually are able to connect a ghost profile to a real profile, then shouldn't that data be available in the data export of the real profile? I've downloaded all my data before but just kicked off another one to check again. If someone in the EU was in the same situation I'd like to see what their data download looks like given the new privacy and data rules under GDPR.
- sexyrouter 8y ago
  That's the data you never provided them. That data is in blackbox ML system which is exclusively for ad targeting, and it can't be described :) that's the Facebook's defense. GDPR doesn't cover the intermediate info AI/ML generates on you.
- r3bl 8y ago
  > If someone in the EU was in the same situation I'd like to see what their data download looks like given the new privacy and data rules under GDPR. Once an EU citizen contacts them and requests the dump, they get redirected to the same tool. You have to explicitly bug them and quote the article 15 (of the GDPR) a few times to receive a different dump. Disclosure: I haven't done this personally, but I have talked to people who did and read their interactions with Facebook. I can't guarantee that this info is still up-to-date, since that happened months after GDPR went into effect.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

beaugunderson 8y ago

> Typically this information is your email address or phone number. Which means they are also using other types of information to identify you, and since your email and phone number can't be used, it must be those other information types. I'd love to know what they are. My count is 11,885 advertisers, for what it's worth. It looks like car dealerships are the majority of them... I've never bought a car from a dealership. Very odd.

nerdponx 8y ago
Mine is exclusively car dealerships. Are DMV records public?
- groby_b 8y ago
  Either that, or the DMV sells them. (I use one-off e-mail addresses, and dmv@mydomain.com is _really_ popular)
  - joering2 8y ago
    Absolutely DMV sells everything on you. State I live winter time - Florida - when I got speeding ticket, less than 4 days later my mailbox was full of ticket schools’ solicitations. They knew everything about me and my ticket. They even knew time and street and speed I was pulled over and cleverly used that in marketing titles: “clocked 67 in 40 miles with highschool on the corner of Oak and Main St? withiut knowledgeable attorney that can cost you 90 days in county jail. Call now”. Its even worse - a friend also in Florida had DUI. Day three a lawyer knocks on his door bringing pizza and beers (!) to sit down discuss his case for free evaluation! Totally unsolicited knock at his door.
    - will_brown 8y ago
      That’s not the DMV selling anything, it’s the clerk of court...everyday they publish a list of new cases (public record) and your ticket is attached to the case and the ticket contains all relevant data (name, address, license #, dob, charge, etc...) and an added bonus the court will also link your dmv driving record to the ticket case so the “scrapers” get your dmv record anyway (for free). They do the same for foreclosure cases.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

You only ever have to connect to the system once, even accidentally, and it will figure the rest out. In spycraft you can do everything right, except that one tiny mess up and you're burned. I find it interesting given what you likely know about the surveillance economy that you're incredulous to the concept that you know and have covered every possible vector. A single person is no match for the surveillance economy.

chrsstrm 8y ago
I'm certainly not hiding my identity behind layers of personas because my life is at stake. I do believe my data has value and that I shouldn't be giving it away to a consumer service for them to monetize at will. Have I taken every available measure? No. Have I made it reasonably difficult for Facebook to figure out who I am, to the point that I'm not endlessly hounded by advertisers and tracked across the depths of the net? Yes. But if we've come to the point where surveillance and social media have merged to the point that no one can post notes to their family and friends without leaving a trail of state-level surveillance data that is kept forever, well then we've all already lost. The IPO of Move Fast and Break Things will continue to haunt everyone for decades to come in ways we haven't even imagined yet.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  But if we've come to the point where surveillance and social media have merged to the point that no one can post notes to their family and friends without leaving a trail of state-level surveillance data that is kept forever, well then we've all already lost. I can assure you, the advertising industry knows vastly more about US persons than any state-level surveillance does.
  - mrexroad 8y ago
    Why do you think they’re allowed to exist, and haven’t been legislated out of existence? Public-private partnerships provide a great model for state-level actors to effectively do what they aren’t “allowed” to do...

jahewson 8y ago

Facebook allows advertisers to upload lists of their existing contacts to target. This can be some simple combination of name, address, date of birth, gender, etc. It’s not limited to email and phone number. The advertiser may themselves have sourced some of this information from third parties based on other information which they have about you - such as your actual phone number or email address. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpref=faq_content https://www.facebook.com/business/help/606443329504150?helpr...

elicash 8y ago

Every week I actually go through and remove a couple dozen advertisers who upload my contact data to Facebook so that they can't target me. It's annoying, and unlike some other features Facebook doesn't allow me to simply not allow this type of advertising. Every week I do this. FB lets me disallow OTHER types of advertising. But not this type.

Godel_unicode 8y ago
Why? You're not removing their knowledge of you, just their ability to target you. It doesn't sound like you're doing this for grins, what do you get out of it?
- elicash 8y ago
  It's the "if everyone did this..." rule. I play my own part in this massive economy that exists of selling data to be used in Facebook ads (Google and other big tech companies do it, too). To me, it's the number one most dangerous thing that has happened to the web. It's my belief that you can make a direct tie from this type of advertising to the layoffs of journalists. That's a more complicated argument than I have time and space for here, but that's why it's an important issue to me -- I think it's a problem for democracy. Edit: I also tell people I do this to spread the word about the practice and FB's failure to provide proper privacy tools -- in person, but also in forums like I did here.
rypskar 8y ago
Isn't that what the setting "adds based on data from partners" are for? (guessing what it will be named in English) I have set it to not allow and have never seen an add from any of the 8 companies who have uploaded my contact data
- elicash 8y ago
  No. Here's what the info box says about that existing privacy feature: "Products that are provided by the Facebook Companies, including WhatsApp and Oculus, as well as Facebook Products like Facebook, Instagram and Messenger." That has nothing to do with non-Facebook companies. It's something else entirely.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

djohnston 8y ago

Either you forgot something you did in the past X years or you've uncovered a massive conspiracy. I know where I'd put my money. I mean, to say you've NEVER clicked an ad, even accidentally? I doubt it, internet stranger.

EGreg 8y ago
I don’t. He seems determined. My money’s on the stranger! How do we settle this?
- djohnston 8y ago
  he should give us the email address .. lol to be clear OP, i'm not trying to be mean or anything. i don't remember what i had for lunch yesterday. it seems that unless you took technical means to validate that everything you said is true, it's quite likely there was an errant click, an errant sharing of the email to a friend, etc, etc.
atwebb 8y ago
Does Facebook not sell the email/contact information? If so, those lists are going to make the rounds, 1,100 seems excessive though.
- Gustomaximus 8y ago
  Also consider it could have been an employee grabbing contact/details lists and selling them.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
In case of Facebook ads, you can check advertisers whose ads you clicked on the same page where you check who uploaded your data. In my case it shows... 2x more than I expected, but looking at the names, most of those were most likely pictures of t-shirts, or funny videos, that I just clicked to check out.
- djohnston 8y ago

bdibs 8y ago

There are many fields that you could be searched for beyond just those two. Your name, street address, city, state, etc.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

flukus 8y ago

Maybe some sort of auto-complete leakage?

mgpc 8y ago

Is the email address something someone else might enter by accident? I constantly get emails intended for someone who has the same surname and first initial as me (and presumably a very similar email). She signs up for all sorts of things and accidentally enters my email (it's quite annoying). I even got her plane tickets once. And I can see loads of FB advertiser matches that are clearly her rather than me.

justinclift 8y ago
Have you had a chat to her about it?

mehrdadn 8y ago

I'm pretty sure these are nonsense. I've seen the exact same advertisers listed for me and a friend and those advertisers have nothing remotely related to us.

jammygit 8y ago

"There are no advertisers in this category right now. Learn more." I wonder why the massive difference

reaperducer 8y ago

Want to know what's funny? The email address I use for Facebook was created only for Facebook. I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. Yep. Me, too. I use the e-mail address facebook@domainiown.example, so it would never be accepted by any of my actual contacts. They all use my real e-mail address. But somehow Facebook says that e-mail address was uploaded by Maserati of Scottsdale (never been to that part of Arizona, and can't afford that kind of car), Mini of Freeport (I've never heard of Freeport), Sunrise Ford NoHo (I have no idea where this is. North Hollywood, maybe? If it is, I don't even live in that state), Crain Kia of Bentonville (Arkansas, maybe? Never been to Arkansas), Bernard's Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (No idea where that is), Drive Toyota (Is that Toyota corporate? I've never owned a Japanese car), Land Rover of San Antonio (I've been to San Antonio once, and that was before Facebook even existed). So I second the OP's suspicion that Facebook is giving out my e-mail address to advertisers/spammers/partners. I sure hope they didn't pay a premium for Facebook's "targeting," because it is evidently atrocious.

ComputerGuru 8y ago
I’ve never set foot in Arizona but I have Maserati of Scottsdale, too. I’m guessing some idiot working in their ad department doesn’t understand targeted advertising and uploaded a leaked list of emails.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Me too. I have a facebook@mydomain email address that I only use to log into Facebook and my "advertisers who use a contact list" has all those same car dealerships (and no other advertisers). There must be one company that paid Facebook for email addresses and then resold them to auto dealerships.
- nitrogen 8y ago
  It could be some third party ad firm trying to generate "lookalike" audiences. They could run some algorithm on their random email lists based on known customers, then upload the resulting list to Facebook.
reitanqild 8y ago

pasta 8y ago

I don't have a Facebook account but I'm sure I have a profile because other uploaded my contact info, uploader pictures with my face, mentioned my name and so on. It's almost impossible to hide from Facebook. So you might hide your email address but how do you know others did?

Legogris 8y ago

Did you add your phone number to your account? Or have a WhatsApp/Instagram/Tinder account that does? Contact info can be more than just e-mail.

Vinnl 8y ago
If it's a phone number you don't even have to do it yourself. If any of your friends have linked their contacts entry of you to your Facebook account and have one of Facebook's apps installed, Facebook can now know your phone number. Edit: They didn't have the phone number, according to the data exporter. Pretty plausible explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490

drewmol 8y ago

TL;DR they swindled your contact info from users, purchased it and/or traded for it. >This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Why do you think so many apps want to extract your phone contact list if not to sell? Have you ever given that phone number out, even if only to one friend or relative? If your name and phone # are saved in their smartphone contact list, they may have been using a smartphone with an adware OS designed by the largest data monitizer on earth bundled with additional spyware preinstalled from the manufacturer, service provider, plus 10 of the highest bidders. Those advertisers could have bought it from your cc issuer, merchant, loyalty card issuer, car dealership or bank as part of a bundle with your transaction history. It could have come with a location history package from your mobile service provider or it could have come compliments of Equifax. Sure, it could have been collected way back in 2017 or whenever while FB was still giving the data out for free. There are plenty of totally innocent explainations... If it turns out next month that those 1,147 advertisers are all just Alphabet companies and the contact list was uploaded by their partner, Facebook, you'll sure feel stupid for jumping to conclusions. /s

ahje 8y ago

For the record, I also use a unique email address for my Facebook account and it was NOT uploaded by any advertisers. Just wanted to put this here in order to point out that this might not affect everyone.

seizethecheese 8y ago

Have you used “log in with Facebook”? That definitely exposes your email address, and then it can be saved and resold.

Vinnl 8y ago

It's sad that it's so buried [1], because I think the theory you mention deep in the thread is most plausible: people scraped your username, guessed the email address <username>@facebook.com and uploaded that, and Facebook associates that email address with your account. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103490

CannisterFlux 8y ago

Unless you self host, maybe your email provider sold you out? They would know that you created it.

ikornaselur 8y ago

I've had a profile for 10 years by now with multiple email addresses associated to it.. including my phone number. I just opened that website for the first time, expecting to see thousands of advertisers, but I can't find any number. On the other hand, the list there had 68 'advertisers', most of which I recognise, some that I'm glad hiding, but I don't believe there's only 68 after all this time??? Especially since at least 10 of those were duplicates (like different countries for the same brand) Am I missing something? I'm just looking at "Who use a contact list added to Facebook"

hdkrgr 8y ago

On a related note, I see exactly what advertisers someone else has interacted with: As you do, I use an alias email for my facebook account. I use it for my facebook login and nothing else (although I do receive the email that arrives there). Now it happens that there's some guy on the other side of the world who has a name similar to mine who keeps erroneously putting down _my alias email_ address as his email for a lot of services (maybe he just sometimes uses the wrong major email provider after the @). I know A LOT about that guys life based on the countless emails I get instead of him. (loan offers, negotiations for used car sales, church group meeting protocols, what politicians he donates to...) Turns out, the advertiser info FB has on "me" is actually on him (or >95% at least.)

tfandango 8y ago
Very interesting. I too have a doppelgänger, several in fact, due to me getting an early gmail address. I have seen all sorts of things, car insurance, memberships, a renovation agreement for the condo, amazon purchases, etc. His gym even came after me because he forgot to pay one month. I used to reply, explaining they had the wrong email, and never once, ever, got a response.

datenhorst 8y ago

You should contact those advertisers and ask what where they got your info from. It's about time that the backlash hits all those advertisers who'll happily use what facebook has to offer, and not only fb themselves.

chillydawg 8y ago

You in the the EU? Sue em.

emilfihlman 8y ago

>I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. Not directly, perhaps. >The inbox for that account only contains emails from Facebook. I have never given Facebook my phone number. Your phone number can easily be scraped or harvested from other users who give Facebook your information. >I have never clicked on an ad in Facebook. VERY unlikely. >I have never connected an app with my Facebook account. Possible. >_Facebook_ itself is the only entity which has ever had my contact info associated with my account. Very unlikely. >So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? User error. The point is that "I would never do that!" is not a valid defense. Humans make errors, you are not an exception to this rule and leaking data is made very, very easy.

seszett 8y ago

In my case I am really surprised a lot by what I found. I created my Facebook account just three years ago and only ever use it with a few family members. I also use a Facebook-specific email address. Most personalisation and privacy settings are locked down, etc. Well, how to explain that under the list of "Advertisers who use a contact list added to Facebook" the only company there is the National Bank of Canada, with which I had a bank account from 2007 to 2008? I didn't have a Facebook account until almost 10 years later, didn't have the same phone number or address (that was in Canada and I had been back in France for a long time when I signed up to Facebook) and didn't even own the domain of my Facebook email address then. Also, for some reason they are listed twice, once as Banque Nationale du Canada, and once as National Bank of Canada. I don't think they had anything else to link to my account than just my real name.

ElectronShak 8y ago

I think unlike Google, Facebook ad targeting does not only look at you / your profile / your clicks, but also at your friends, and what they are interested in, they then use this information to Infer or predict what things you might be interested in. So yes, you might not have interacted with any ads or apps, but people in your social graph have.

aembleton 8y ago

Fascinating. I have loads of US car dealerships such as Land Rover San Antonio, Mini of Freeport and South Motors Infiniti. I've never been to the US! This is the same email that I use everywhere, so its easy for them to get and stuff into Facebook, but surely they are then paying to advertise to someone who isn't able to buy from them. Or maybe this is then further filtered based upon geo location. Maybe, as soon as I land in San Antonio I'd start receiving Land Rover adverts because they've provided my email address. Incredible how many of them are US car dealerships.

hopler 8y ago
Based on commercial te in this thread, clearly these dealerships did something shady or bought a list from someone shady. If Facebook was concerned about user experience and ad quality, they would detect cases like this and block those advertisers.

pergadad 8y ago

Clicking on "advertiser's" on the preferences page gives me a "no internet connection" error within the Facebook mobile web app. Don't get that anywhere else .

chiefalchemist 8y ago

re: "The email address I use for Facebook was created only for Facebook. I have never given it out to anyone else, ever. The inbox for that account only contains emails from Facebook." Per the book "Chaos Monkeys", as well as others sources I would presume since, that single signal is not a "unique key". There are plenty of other ways being used to tie you to your devices (plural! as in, you're a known / constant as you move from phone to laptop to tablet, and so on.) Mind you, neither is new, but Dragnet Nation and Chaos Monkeys are both insightful, and if you take your privacy and liberty serious frightening. https://www.antoniogarciamartinez.com/chaos-monkeys/ https://www.antoniogarciamartinez.com/chaos-monkeys/ http://juliaangwin.com/dragnet-nation-available-now/ http://juliaangwin.com/dragnet-nation-available-now/ Of the two, CM is the written to be more entertaining.

renholder 8y ago

Consideration: Facebook Pixel is still tracking you across the web, so it's easy to correlate other accounts from other companies to your account; not to mention that other services are probably consuming the Facebook Pixel service. They can build their own databases, referencing your Facebook correlation information, and share that back to Facebook. So, let's say you have a Facebook account and go to "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com". If "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com" implements Facebook Pixel (or has a way to consume it) and you buy something from them, giving your phone number, address, etc., then your other information is automatically correlatable just by those two points of data. The fact that 1,147 other companies have your information tells me that there was probably an intermediary advertising company between "Mom & POP Shop, Inc. dot com" and Facebook, so that intermediary could sell your information to anyone and everyone and, once it's on the "advertising market", it's ripe for correlation from other companies - Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. All that's need is at least one, consistent, correlatable point of data - say your mac address or your browser's established fingerprint and you're "fair game" for targeting on the "advertising market". (Insert Bill Hicks' reference to Marketing and Advertising[1] here.) [1] - https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY https://youtu.be/9h9wStdPkQY

jstanley 8y ago
But he has never given that email address to anyone other than Facebook.
- stedaniels 8y ago
  I think their trying to say.. But Facebook knows the other email addresses you use, due to using Facebook Pixel. The advertiser targets the other email addresses, not the one you use for Facebook.

xg15 8y ago

Not excusing their behavior, but could it be Facebook have not matched you using the email address you have given them but your real address, which they have found out via shadow profiles? E.g., they know you'd like them to assume that chrsstrm123@throwaway.example.com is your email address (and they do you the favor in all publicly visible parts of your profile), but they also see that most of the people in your friends list haven an entry for "chrsstrm456@example.net" in their address book, filed under your name. So they'll simply add both addresses as keys to your account.

pc86 8y ago
With the pervasiveness and relatively well known existence of shadow profiles for people not on Facebook, it makes sense that Facebook would know some information about you that you haven't shared with it. I'm curious why Facebook would link a shadow profile about you to your real profile though, even if it knew with relative certainty you were one in the same. I can see no benefit other than advertising (which doesn't really necessitate them telling you in this way) but it seems that it could pretty easily lead to the misunderstanding above where folks impugn nefarious motives to Facebook that aren't accurate.
thinkling 8y ago
Or are you using your real mobile number for 2-factor auth on Facebook? You're probably also giving that out to businesses you have a relationship with. And most people don't have a second fake phone number to give out to avoid matching. It's a bit like grocery store loyalty cards: you can give the grocery store bogus contact info when you sign up for one, but the first time you swipe a credit card to pay for your groceries, the store gets your name and a unique ID linked to you (the card #) that can be used to match your profile in (say) an Acxiom database.
throwaway53532 8y ago
Look at the newest post about Carta in the stocks reddit. Companies are buying your data from other companies to do targeted advertising campaigns.
throwaway53534 8y ago

cascom 8y ago

It says “...or phone number” my guess is all businesses that have your phone number

dwild 8y ago

I use mine everywhere and yet I only have less than 80 advertisers there, a good portion of which I have registered on their website (Ubisoft, Airbnb, Bell, Candy Crush, Nintendo, Hilton, HP, Netflix, Particle, CBS, EVE Online, KnowRoaming, Seeed Studio, Uber Eats, Goodfood and plenty others...).

bluetidepro 8y ago

Is there a script or way to auto click remove on all of these?

joshstrange 8y ago

I really want to scrape this page/data and get alerts when a new entity is added. Like I see the company that makes the Sous Vide device I got for Christmas. Prior to the gift I had never heard of this brand (it's a good brand, I just hadn't done any research) but they show up in the list. I would bet I got added after I setup a user account with them but I would love to know how quick that process is. Getting a push notification would be pretty cool to see if it happens in batches or more or less immediately after I give some my contact info.

throwaway53532 8y ago

Companies are buying your data from other companies to do targeted advertising campaigns. Look at this post in the stocks reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spreadsheet_link/ https://www.reddit.com/r/stocks/comments/ao8gav/carta_spread...

corobo 8y ago

> So tell me, how did 1,147 other businesses and groups get their hands on my info if I've never given it out? Excellent question. I am also very intrigued. I'm gonna ask them all. https://cohan.io/activate-the-gdpr-robots/ https://cohan.io/activate-the-gdpr-robots/