Facebook Really Is Spying on You, Just Not Through Your Phone's Mic

Have you ever bought something, or even thought about buying something and all of a sudden you start seeing ads for it on your social media feed? A conspiracy that has recently caught some attention claims that Facebook is stalking us through our phone's microphones and tailoring our ad experience based off of what they pick up. This sounds a little insane, but it's only half true. Former Facebook ad-targeting product manager, Antonio Garcia Martinez, says that uploading and scanning that much audio data would "strain even the resources of the NSA." And former Facebook operations manager, Sandy Parakilas, says " They would need to understand the context of what you were saying too - not just listen for words." Now, these are both very convincing arguments but they did work for Facebook so we aren't really sure if their safety depends on these statements or not. Which is why WSJ journalist, Joanna Stern, did some digging of her own to find out how how social media is tracking our product preferences. 

It starts with what you've bought. If you have a loyalty card anywhere, a third party data collector (like Nielsen-Catalina Solutions), adds its to the purchase history of that store and gets paid by someone like Johnson and Johnson to share that data. Then Facebooks uses their tools to match the loyalty card to you considering you're probably using the same name, email address and phone number as your Facebook account. Then through Facebook, Johnson and Johnson is able to target adults by their age buying that certain product and cater their ad experience to their newly discovered information. 

Then it looks at where you've been. This is all about your location services. "Advertisers are using all sorts of location signals - your phones GPS, Wi-Fi access points around you, IP addresses, etc. - to follow your breadcrumbs... Other apps can pinpoint your location and serve you ads back through Facebook." And whatever apps you're using, you'll frequently see ad following a common theme. If you download a weight loss app, you better believe you're going to start getting all the attention from fitness and health ads. Something I have noticed from personal experience is if I am shopping online and bought something from a certain store or had some things left in my shopping cart without completing a purchase - I will start getting stalked by that specific store's ads. Its all about what you click on. 

So can we skip this messed up episode of Black Mirror or is our only escape in bunker far from society? For starters, you can cancel your loyalty cards or register them under an email and phone number you don't use. Then you can go to each of Facebook's 6 data brokers and fill out a form which allows you to opt out of them using your information. You can also turn off location tracking and disable tracking history in your phone and computer settings. "On the iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services and go through the apps you’ve granted location access. (They should all say “Never” or “While Using”—not “Always.”) On Android, go to Settings > Location." "You can also delete any interests Facebook may have gathered about you previously. On your computer’s browser, install the Ghostery or Privacy Badger extensions. Both allow you to see—and disable— trackers that are running on webpages."

But that sounds like, a lot of work. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-really-is-spying-on-you-just-not-through-your-phones-mic-1520448644?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=video&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s