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AnonTechie writes:

A Consumer Reports analysis looks at who is sending information about your online activity to Facebook

By now most internet users know their online activity is constantly tracked. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of "partners."

But what is the scale of this surveillance? Judging from data collected by Facebook and newly described in a unique study by Consumer Reports (PDF), it's massive, and examining the data may leave you with more questions than answers.

Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. On average, each participant in the study had their data sent to Facebook by 2,230 companies. That number varied significantly, with some panelists' data listing over 7,000 companies providing their data. The Markup helped Consumer Reports recruit participants for the study. Participants downloaded an archive of the previous three years of their data from their Facebook settings, then provided it to Consumer Reports.

[...] Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez defended the company's practices. "We offer a number of transparency tools to help people understand the information that businesses choose to share with us, and manage how it's used," wrote Vazquez in an emailed statement to The Markup.

While Meta does provide transparency tools like the one that enabled the study, Consumer Reports identified problems with them, including that the identity of many data providers is unclear from the names disclosed to users and that companies that provide services to advertisers are often allowed to ignore opt-out requests.

This article was copublished with The Markup, a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good.

Consumer Reports

[Also Covered By]: Schneier on Security

Original Submission

1. "AnonTechie" - https://soylentnews.org/~AnonTechie/
2. "Consumer Reports (PDF)" - http://innovation.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/CR_Who-Shares-Your-Information-With-Facebook.pdf
3. "copublished" - https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-study-indicates
4. "Consumer Reports" - https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-a5824207467/
5. "Schneier on Security" - https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/facebooks-extensive-surveillance-network.html
6. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=62003

printed from SoylentNews, Each Facebook User Is Monitored by Thousands of Companies on 2024-07-27 04:32:54