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mrzyphl

New member
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
40
Location
ontario, canada
Basic Beliefs
humanism
Is facebook monitoring everything we do on the internet? Whenever I search for a product or service when I go to my facebook timeline I see ad posts for the stuff I searched for. Is this normal?
 
Not only that, I appear to be getting email links to products that I happened to have been browsing on Google.
 
Searches, credit card purchases, things you talk about when in the vicinity of your phone. Every data point they can acquire about you will be used to deliver ads.
 
It goes deeper than that. Your phone (and TV and any gadget that is voice activated, like Echo) is always listening as well. So you can be having a discussion with your friend or lover about gifts you want to buy, your phone picks that up and then voila! You see ads the next day or you receive an email for 15% off the exact product you were just talking about.

Companies deny it—and ad targeting algorithms are so good most probably don’t need it—but it’s a thing and it will only get worse the more we shift to IoT.
 
It's nothing new. In the early days of the world wide web, I had an AOL account. I mentioned a person who was an old navy veteran in an email. The next morning I had spam email for Old Navy clothing store.
 
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
 
Politicians don't even know how Facebook monetizes it's product, good luck getting them to figure out how to regulate a high-speed digital train.

One day.
 
mrzyphl said:
Is facebook monitoring everything we do on the internet? Whenever I search for a product or service when I go to my facebook timeline I see ad posts for the stuff I searched for. Is this normal?
Click to expand...

It's called "retargeting"

It isn't Facebook directly (though they provide helpful tools for marketers). Basically, when you go to a company's website to look at a product or service, they capture your IP address, which they can add to a custom target audience for their Facebook advertisements.

Same thing when the ads follow you across Google or other search engines
 
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

What's that worth to you, though? If Facebook had an option where you could use their site ad-free in exchange for a monthly fee, would you sign up for it? Most people wouldn't, which results in their ad-based revenue model.

Also, you don't have to accept anything. If you don't like Facebook's business model, you can stop using Facebook.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

What's that worth to you, though? If Facebook had an option where you could use their site ad-free in exchange for a monthly fee, would you sign up for it? Most people wouldn't, which results in their ad-based revenue model.

Also, you don't have to accept anything. If you don't like Facebook's business model, you can stop using Facebook.
Click to expand...

It'd be a nice option, depending on the cost. If I could pay a small fee to use Facebook ad-free, while having complete control over my data I'd do it for sure.
 
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

That's not actually the way it works. You don't have personal space on facebook. You are a guest in their house when you log on.

It's no different than this forum. We have rules and expectations of forum members. No one gets to claim, "This is my computer, so I can behave as I please."

When one logs onto facebook, you accept facebook's deal. There's not really any negotiation over this.
 
Bronzeage said:
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

That's not actually the way it works. You don't have personal space on facebook. You are a guest in their house when you log on.

It's no different than this forum. We have rules and expectations of forum members. No one gets to claim, "This is my computer, so I can behave as I please."

When one logs onto facebook, you accept facebook's deal. There's not really any negotiation over this.
Click to expand...

True. Though I'd argue that Facebook is not transparent at all about what it's doing, and they should be forced to inform the user of the deal they're actually getting.
 
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

Several years ago I started to join facebook but then thought better of it when I logged in and saw the personal information they required to join. I find it difficult to understand why anyone who is concerned about "infringement of their personal space" would even consider having a space there. I am always thankful that I decided not to join every time I hear of another hacker breaking into the facebook data base. The information they have on each member in their data base is a gold mine for identify thieves.
 
rousseau said:
Bronzeage said:
mrzyphl said:
So we have to accept an infringement of our personal space to keep facebook going?
Oh well, it's more a minor annoyance to me than anything.
It does them no good to shove their crap in my face.
If I need a product or service I go find it myself.
Click to expand...

That's not actually the way it works. You don't have personal space on facebook. You are a guest in their house when you log on.

It's no different than this forum. We have rules and expectations of forum members. No one gets to claim, "This is my computer, so I can behave as I please."

When one logs onto facebook, you accept facebook's deal. There's not really any negotiation over this.
Click to expand...

True. Though I'd argue that Facebook is not transparent at all about what it's doing, and they should be forced to inform the user of the deal they're actually getting.
Click to expand...

I am reminded of an article written by Penn Gillette, about living in Las Vegas. I'm paraphrasing, but he opens the article by saying, everyday, thousands of people arrive in Las Vegas by cars, trains, buses, and planes. They are in the middle of the desert and see pyramids, waterfalls, and pirate ships, and streets that are lit bright as day, all night long. None of these people stop long enough to ask themselves, 'How do they pay for all of this?'

If a person wants the privacy that the semi-anonymity of the 1950's offered the ordinary person, they will have to live like it's the 1950's. One has a name and address, and perhaps a telephone, which comes with a listing in the phone book. Your credit history is contained in the card file of the local grocer and once a year, those cards are thrown away. No one knows what you like, unless you tell them. The joy of this paradise is limited by the fact that consumer choices are limited to what is found in local stores, or possibly paper catalogs. Television is a novelty and most people aren't impressed, mainly because Technicolor movies are its primary competition. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The information age is actually quite nice. There are compromises to be made today, just as in the 1950's. One compromise I don't have to make is climbing up on the roof to realign the TV antenna, based on which channel I want to watch tonight.
 
Bronzeage said:
rousseau said:
True. Though I'd argue that Facebook is not transparent at all about what it's doing, and they should be forced to inform the user of the deal they're actually getting.
Click to expand...

I am reminded of an article written by Penn Gillette, about living in Las Vegas. I'm paraphrasing, but he opens the article by saying, everyday, thousands of people arrive in Las Vegas by cars, trains, buses, and planes. They are in the middle of the desert and see pyramids, waterfalls, and pirate ships, and streets that are lit bright as day, all night long. None of these people stop long enough to ask themselves, 'How do they pay for all of this?'

If a person wants the privacy that the semi-anonymity of the 1950's offered the ordinary person, they will have to live like it's the 1950's. One has a name and address, and perhaps a telephone, which comes with a listing in the phone book. Your credit history is contained in the card file of the local grocer and once a year, those cards are thrown away. No one knows what you like, unless you tell them. The joy of this paradise is limited by the fact that consumer choices are limited to what is found in local stores, or possibly paper catalogs. Television is a novelty and most people aren't impressed, mainly because Technicolor movies are its primary competition. I could go on, but you get the idea.

The information age is actually quite nice. There are compromises to be made today, just as in the 1950's. One compromise I don't have to make is climbing up on the roof to realign the TV antenna, based on which channel I want to watch tonight.
Click to expand...

The digital world is also a giant, unregulated garbage heap that's going to change a lot over the coming decades.

Software companies are still figuring out the digital world.. so it'll take a while before governments catch up.
 
I like to go on occasional search-sprees to change the flavor of my fb ads. One month it’s horses. Next month it’s race cars, then gold. It’s fun.
 
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