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Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seein

Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?

rightbyte 6y ago
Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.
giantrobot 6y ago
For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  > They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Where can I find one of these dossiers? Or at least a screenshot example of a dossier that someone bought from Facebook? Surely you wouldn't make a claim without seeing proof of this behavior happening. That would misinform people and your not trying to do that, right?
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Who needs a screenshot? Look at your own[0]. Yeah I am[1] trying to misinform[2] people[3]. [0] https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/in... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-advertisers-data-brokers-car-dealerships https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-ap...
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      Wait, you’re saying that Facebook allowing you to freely download your own data is selling dossiers? Complying with GDPR is wrongdoing, when Facebook does it?
      - giantrobot 6y ago
        You're well aware that's not what I was saying. I was demonstrating the data Facebook makes available and what they build their Ad products out of.
        shajznnckfke 6y ago
        It sounds like Facebook is allowing advertisers who already have names and contact into for people (which is widely available info, so not too surprising that they have it), to target ads to those users. Is that what you meant by “selling dossiers”? That doesn’t sound like a dossier. I could see describing the user’s ability to download their own data as a dossier, but that’s just compliance with GDPR, not “selling dossiers”. I feel like there is some confusion happening here, where the data about yourself that you can download is being conflated with the name/contact info that the advertisers already have and use to buy ads, and these two separate things are being mixed together and described as “selling dossiers”. To be clear: GDPR data you can download about yourself includes the information about the advertisers who already had your contact info. Those advertisers don’t get a copy of the GDPR data portability document.
- shajznnckfke 6y ago
  I think these (to the extent they are true) are just a bunch of synonyms for ad targeting, which people already intuitively understand. If an ad is targeted at you, obviously the information needed to do that has to exist somewhere. People may not know the technical terminology, but they understand it. I’m not just talking about the tech filter bubble. When I visit my rural family home, people talk to me about it. They joke about what the algorithm will think of this or that activity they do on a phone. It’s not true that you can just buy a dossier on someone from Google or Facebook. That would make no sense, their business is rationing the use of that data by selling inferences (the gold eggs), not by selling the model (the golden goose).
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    So Facebook apps with access to your friends lists, group memberships, and likes aren't dossiers? As Cambridge Analytica should have demonstrated is relationship graphs are personal dossiers. They're significant predictors of habits and behavior. It's also trivial to link those graphs to selectors like phone numbers and email addresses. But let's pretend that because Facebook isn't providing third parties Manila folders full of photocopied papers that they're not selling your PII.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      Woah, motte, meet bailey! So by “selling dossiers” you actually meant “allows users to choose to share friends list for free”, a feature that does the same thing you can also do with your contacts list on iOS and Android? And you’re muddying the waters by bringing up a group of criminals that also used other, now defunct APIs?

Isn’t it common knowledge at this point that our browsing history is used to target ads? Who hasn’t had the experience of searching for a product and then seeing ads for it?

rightbyte 6y ago

Took a long time for me to notice since I didn't even think that it could be possible.

giantrobot 6y ago

For starters, it's not just browsing history but all of your activity on pages or in apps that use Facebook's spywa..."ads". This includes activity times, connections to other users, and even proximity to places or other people (Bluetooth beacons etc). This is all on top of the voluntary PII you might have fed directly into a Facebook profile or the shadow profile they helpfully created for you when your friend uploaded their contacts into Facebook. There's zero oversight of how that data is used or who it's sold to and what those buyers do with it. We've already seen a number of cases where this harvested data was sold to unscrupulous or outright criminal concerns. So it's not just Facebook using browsing history to sell you boxes of Tide. They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Facebook exacerbates this behavior by "advertisers" by using your dossier to stick you in a filter bubble while at the same time showing you content that maximizes "engagement" and nothing else. The dog wagging and gaslighting are not common knowledge or well understood by most people. Neither are the shadow profiles or the access of data by any organization that drove a dump truck full of money to Menlo Park. They're worse than the old school information brokers and credit reporting agencies because they feed all of your behavior into their graphs rather than just transaction history or public data.

bryan_w 6y ago
> They're selling dossiers on you to groups literally trying to gaslight and manipulate you, to subconsciously influence you to do things, or to just make you generally feel like shit. Where can I find one of these dossiers? Or at least a screenshot example of a dossier that someone bought from Facebook? Surely you wouldn't make a claim without seeing proof of this behavior happening. That would misinform people and your not trying to do that, right?
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Who needs a screenshot? Look at your own[0]. Yeah I am[1] trying to misinform[2] people[3]. [0] https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 https://m.facebook.com/help/212802592074644 [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/technology/facebook-data/in... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/facebook-advertisers-data-brokers-car-dealerships https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/faceboo... [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-apps-have-access-to-your-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/how-to-see-which-facebook-ap...
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    Wait, you’re saying that Facebook allowing you to freely download your own data is selling dossiers? Complying with GDPR is wrongdoing, when Facebook does it?
    - giantrobot 6y ago
      You're well aware that's not what I was saying. I was demonstrating the data Facebook makes available and what they build their Ad products out of.
      - shajznnckfke 6y ago
        It sounds like Facebook is allowing advertisers who already have names and contact into for people (which is widely available info, so not too surprising that they have it), to target ads to those users. Is that what you meant by “selling dossiers”? That doesn’t sound like a dossier. I could see describing the user’s ability to download their own data as a dossier, but that’s just compliance with GDPR, not “selling dossiers”. I feel like there is some confusion happening here, where the data about yourself that you can download is being conflated with the name/contact info that the advertisers already have and use to buy ads, and these two separate things are being mixed together and described as “selling dossiers”. To be clear: GDPR data you can download about yourself includes the information about the advertisers who already had your contact info. Those advertisers don’t get a copy of the GDPR data portability document.
shajznnckfke 6y ago
I think these (to the extent they are true) are just a bunch of synonyms for ad targeting, which people already intuitively understand. If an ad is targeted at you, obviously the information needed to do that has to exist somewhere. People may not know the technical terminology, but they understand it. I’m not just talking about the tech filter bubble. When I visit my rural family home, people talk to me about it. They joke about what the algorithm will think of this or that activity they do on a phone. It’s not true that you can just buy a dossier on someone from Google or Facebook. That would make no sense, their business is rationing the use of that data by selling inferences (the gold eggs), not by selling the model (the golden goose).
- giantrobot 6y ago
  So Facebook apps with access to your friends lists, group memberships, and likes aren't dossiers? As Cambridge Analytica should have demonstrated is relationship graphs are personal dossiers. They're significant predictors of habits and behavior. It's also trivial to link those graphs to selectors like phone numbers and email addresses. But let's pretend that because Facebook isn't providing third parties Manila folders full of photocopied papers that they're not selling your PII.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    Woah, motte, meet bailey! So by “selling dossiers” you actually meant “allows users to choose to share friends list for free”, a feature that does the same thing you can also do with your contacts list on iOS and Android? And you’re muddying the waters by bringing up a group of criminals that also used other, now defunct APIs?