4 ms·

For FB, I use an e-mail that is no longer my primary one for almost a decade - all other activity is on a different one.

by rathel 6y ago

Dansvidania 6y ago
I applied this same strategy, but I must have let my guard down for a moment and somehow Facebook figured out my new email address. I find this incredibly annoying, and also pretty spooky.
- appleflaxen 6y ago
  It doesn't have to be you: your old friend has both, and shares their data with Facebook, Snapchat, and/or Whatsapp (all are Facebook) so you have no hope of concealing this.
  - acheron 6y ago
    > It doesn't have to be you: your old friend has both, and shares their data with Facebook, Snapchat, and/or Whatsapp (all are Facebook) so you have no hope of concealing this. Instagram, not Snapchat, but yes. That's the main part of how they build "shadow profiles" of people without accounts, afaik.
  - jjoonathan 6y ago
    Here I thought I was being paranoid by practicing complete identity separation opsec. Now it turns out to be barely sufficient for dodging targeted ads. Ugh.
  - Dansvidania 6y ago
    I actually created an email address just for the purpose of creating a facebook account with it. Never shared it with anyone, never really used it for anything other than facebook. They got me still.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      Your friends uploaded their addressbooks, knowingly or unknowingly (e.g. regular use of Instagram, FB Messenger, or WhatsApp, or the FB App would make that seem completely innocent) So they know "John Smith" whose friends with "Joe User" on Facebook, has an email address for "Joe User" that is different than the one listed for "John Smith"'s account; now they have both. That's part of their business. Personally, I own a domain. Every retailer, website, etc. I interact with gets their own email address. I have no doubt Facebook knows some of them, and can maybe even connect some of them to my profile -- but it's not certain. P.S: I don't even use facebook myself.
      - artificialLimbs 6y ago
        In several years of doing this, I have not gotten one single piece of spam. Not sure if it's related, but I wonder if $COMPANY is less likely to sell $COMPANY@domain.com to a third party.
        beagle3 6y ago
        I’ve gotten quite a bit of spam, mostly from well known breaches - surprisingly few leaked out to become pure spam. However, I’ve received several LinkedIn and Facebook invites to these emails from businesses I interacted with - so I know LinkedIn and Facebook (at the very least) have — at least in the past — failed to make the connection between identities.
itake 6y ago
I think fb also links together emails if your friends have shared their contacts list. Also, I think FB recognizes residential IP addresses and associates activity from the same IP. I occasionally see Friend recommendations with ppl from ppl that I shared the same IP address with, but normally would not know.
x0x0 6y ago
That's not particularly helpful for ecommerce. One of Facebook's largest businesses is allowing companies to advertise against first-party data, ie lists of activities the customers upload. Crucially, these don't require a cookie sync; facebook matches against any of name, phone, zip9. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2469097953376494&ref=fbb_retargeting https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2... Naturally, there's not really a way to buy something without presenting this information to the retailer. What can help OP is this: if in CA, go to the ecommerce company and submit a Do Not Sell request. If in EU, submit a deletion request. NB: for the latter, they will be able to retain information like shipping, etc. If in none of the above geos, hope the retailer is nice and gives the whole world the same rights.
pvg 6y ago
Like others have pointed out, there are a lot of ways for FB to connect an email account you haven't explicitly given them to you. That's been a core 'feature' of FB forever. The other part is - when you made the purchase, the retailer just fed your data to FB for their ad targeting. This covers the vast majority of FB 'spookily' figuring out someone still collects Beanie Babies cases. Edit: You can also go into your FB ad 'privacy' settings and turn off some of the targeting stuff, for instance 'Ad based on data from partners'. You can also dig around there for a log of partners FB thinks you've 'interacted' with. Turning this stuff off gets rid of the spookiest ads and things like retirement facilities ads because you set your age to 103 when you created the account.

For FB, I use an e-mail that is no longer my primary one for almost a decade - all other activity is on a different one.

by rathel 6y ago

For FB, I use an e-mail that is no longer my primary one for almost a decade - all other activity is on a different one.

Dansvidania 6y ago

I applied this same strategy, but I must have let my guard down for a moment and somehow Facebook figured out my new email address. I find this incredibly annoying, and also pretty spooky.

appleflaxen 6y ago
It doesn't have to be you: your old friend has both, and shares their data with Facebook, Snapchat, and/or Whatsapp (all are Facebook) so you have no hope of concealing this.
- acheron 6y ago
  > It doesn't have to be you: your old friend has both, and shares their data with Facebook, Snapchat, and/or Whatsapp (all are Facebook) so you have no hope of concealing this. Instagram, not Snapchat, but yes. That's the main part of how they build "shadow profiles" of people without accounts, afaik.
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Here I thought I was being paranoid by practicing complete identity separation opsec. Now it turns out to be barely sufficient for dodging targeted ads. Ugh.
- Dansvidania 6y ago
  I actually created an email address just for the purpose of creating a facebook account with it. Never shared it with anyone, never really used it for anything other than facebook. They got me still.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    Your friends uploaded their addressbooks, knowingly or unknowingly (e.g. regular use of Instagram, FB Messenger, or WhatsApp, or the FB App would make that seem completely innocent) So they know "John Smith" whose friends with "Joe User" on Facebook, has an email address for "Joe User" that is different than the one listed for "John Smith"'s account; now they have both. That's part of their business. Personally, I own a domain. Every retailer, website, etc. I interact with gets their own email address. I have no doubt Facebook knows some of them, and can maybe even connect some of them to my profile -- but it's not certain. P.S: I don't even use facebook myself.
    - artificialLimbs 6y ago
      In several years of doing this, I have not gotten one single piece of spam. Not sure if it's related, but I wonder if $COMPANY is less likely to sell $COMPANY@domain.com to a third party.
      - beagle3 6y ago
        I’ve gotten quite a bit of spam, mostly from well known breaches - surprisingly few leaked out to become pure spam. However, I’ve received several LinkedIn and Facebook invites to these emails from businesses I interacted with - so I know LinkedIn and Facebook (at the very least) have — at least in the past — failed to make the connection between identities.

itake 6y ago

I think fb also links together emails if your friends have shared their contacts list. Also, I think FB recognizes residential IP addresses and associates activity from the same IP. I occasionally see Friend recommendations with ppl from ppl that I shared the same IP address with, but normally would not know.

x0x0 6y ago

That's not particularly helpful for ecommerce. One of Facebook's largest businesses is allowing companies to advertise against first-party data, ie lists of activities the customers upload. Crucially, these don't require a cookie sync; facebook matches against any of name, phone, zip9. https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2469097953376494&ref=fbb_retargeting https://www.facebook.com/business/help/2082575038703844?id=2... Naturally, there's not really a way to buy something without presenting this information to the retailer. What can help OP is this: if in CA, go to the ecommerce company and submit a Do Not Sell request. If in EU, submit a deletion request. NB: for the latter, they will be able to retain information like shipping, etc. If in none of the above geos, hope the retailer is nice and gives the whole world the same rights.

pvg 6y ago

Like others have pointed out, there are a lot of ways for FB to connect an email account you haven't explicitly given them to you. That's been a core 'feature' of FB forever. The other part is - when you made the purchase, the retailer just fed your data to FB for their ad targeting. This covers the vast majority of FB 'spookily' figuring out someone still collects Beanie Babies cases. Edit: You can also go into your FB ad 'privacy' settings and turn off some of the targeting stuff, for instance 'Ad based on data from partners'. You can also dig around there for a log of partners FB thinks you've 'interacted' with. Turning this stuff off gets rid of the spookiest ads and things like retirement facilities ads because you set your age to 103 when you created the account.