4 ms·

They have also made a very insidious change to their /ads/preferences page within the past month or two: 1. Entries on the list of companies that have uploaded

They have also made a very insidious change to their /ads/preferences page within the past month or two: 1. Entries on the list of companies that have uploaded your contact information to Facebook cannot be blocked by simply clicking an 'x' on their name. You must click for "View Controls" and then click on two additional buttons to not allow them to target (or exclude) you. 2. The list is in RANDOM order (as far as I, a user, can tell) 3. There is no ability to distinguish between blocked and unblocked entries from the main page. Users must click into each entry to check the status. 4. New entries are not highlighted or indicated in any way. Because of this, and combined with facts 2 & 3, users must now re-check each entry manually in order to be sure they are catching any new entries that arise. I get new entries on a near-weekly basis despite now (but not in the past) using a dedicated Facebook-only email address and removing my phone number and all other identifying information from the site. Facebook is maintaining a shadow profile on me which includes data I scrubbed from my account and profile over a year ago, and they are still matching advertisers to my profile based on the scrubbed data. That scrubbed data DOES NOT appear in the "download your information" tool, either.

radicaldreamer 7y ago
Lots of dark patterns in these interfaces. The Google one has an incredible amount of white space and drop downs to obscure content.
- judge2020 7y ago
  Are you talking about adssettings.google.com? That site is pretty good, it shows what it thinks you're interested in and turning them off is click -> turn off; plus the topics you've already turned off aren't part of the list of things it's currently targeting.
- freeAgent 7y ago
  It is clear that they are striving to make the process of using the page to manage your privacy controls as frustrating and time-consuming as possible. It is certainly no accident.
mtgx 7y ago
The FTC needs to stop making "settlements" with Facebook. Facebook has proven multiple times that it's a bad faith actor, so it can't be trusted to follow the rules of the settlement. FTC/DOJ should go all the way if they really want Facebook to be afraid of their investigations.
bluetidepro 7y ago
Yeah, I noticed this, too. Very frustrating. I had posted a helpful gist in the past to make this quick and easy (https://gist.github.com/bluetidepro/bfa60c1d63925180daf3dd53e5ff48ea https://gist.github.com/bluetidepro/bfa60c1d63925180daf3dd53...), but it no longer works because of this frustrating change.

radicaldreamer 7y ago

Lots of dark patterns in these interfaces. The Google one has an incredible amount of white space and drop downs to obscure content.

judge2020 7y ago
Are you talking about adssettings.google.com? That site is pretty good, it shows what it thinks you're interested in and turning them off is click -> turn off; plus the topics you've already turned off aren't part of the list of things it's currently targeting.
freeAgent 7y ago
It is clear that they are striving to make the process of using the page to manage your privacy controls as frustrating and time-consuming as possible. It is certainly no accident.

mtgx 7y ago

The FTC needs to stop making "settlements" with Facebook. Facebook has proven multiple times that it's a bad faith actor, so it can't be trusted to follow the rules of the settlement. FTC/DOJ should go all the way if they really want Facebook to be afraid of their investigations.

bluetidepro 7y ago

Yeah, I noticed this, too. Very frustrating. I had posted a helpful gist in the past to make this quick and easy (https://gist.github.com/bluetidepro/bfa60c1d63925180daf3dd53e5ff48ea https://gist.github.com/bluetidepro/bfa60c1d63925180daf3dd53...), but it no longer works because of this frustrating change.