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Ignorance may be bliss for Facebook's users. About 74 percent of adults in the US who use Facebook didn't know the social network keeps a list of their interests and traits for ad targeting, says a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.
About half of Facebook users said they weren't comfortable that the company compiled this information.
The world's largest social network came under fire in 2018 for a series of scandals over data privacy and security. The episodes caused concern about whether Facebook does enough to let users know what information it tracks and how it uses the data.
Facebook knows your age, gender and location, along with what you post, the pages you like and the businesses you check into on the social network. All that information helps the company determine what ads to show its 2.3 billion users.
Facebook users can view their "ad preferences" page to see what the social network thinks their interests are and why they're seeing a given ad. This list can include users' political leanings, hobbies and even the type of smartphone they use. Facebook users can also remove an interest from that list to change the type of ads they see on the social network.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 19 2019, @10:50PM (2 children)
Is a VPN really needed? With the right ad and script blocking you should be able to stop most profiling. Then if you don't trust your ISP, why trust some other random company? Use Tor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Saturday January 19 2019, @11:08PM (1 child)
note, then you are trusting some random people (or TLAs) running the exit nodes.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday January 20 2019, @04:08AM
'Nuff sed.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]