Is Facebook Spying On Me

Is Facebook Advertising Spying On Me?

Tech TuesdayIf you’ve ever felt like Facebook or any other app on your phone was listening to your conversations, you’re not entirely wrong. While it may look like Facebook is “listening” to you, it’s highly unlikely the social media network is tracking your every word through your phone’s microphone.

Many users say their phone’s microphone has been pirated by Facebook to target ads. If you’ve ever been paranoid that Facebook is listening to you based on how scarry the relevance of ads and content are to your interests, you are not alone. 

The question is… is it real? Facebook has actually been really clear about the matter, and states it isn’t utilizing microphone recordings to target ads much better.

Facebook does not require to spy on your real-life conversations, since you turn over so much info anyhow. Follow this link and you’ll have the ability to download everything Facebook learns about you. https://www.alphr.com/facebook/1003521/see-everything-facebook-knows-about-you-here-s-how/  

You will rapidly understand it’s a staggering amount of info. 

Advertisers can use info gleaned from your activity all across the web, on several gadgets, even if you’re not logged into Facebook or other services.

So when you get ads for something you’ve spoken about aloud, it’s probably just advertisers being really good at anticipating your interests. It’s also possible that there’s an advertising campaign running that is highly targeted. Perhaps you spent time on a an advertisement or web page and similar ads are shown. When this happens, you may see similar ads in several places repeatedly, and it may seem suspicious. But it’s actually ALL about business and efficiency of advertising spending.

The Facebook Advertising Platform

For advertisers, what makes Facebook advertisements truly efficient is the level of audience targeting, the number of users on the platform, and the level of analytics and insights. These benefits combined with a fantastic method is why Facebook ads work for so numerous types of services.

Facebook boasts the largest user-base of any social media network and among the most engaged.  Facebook’s ad targeting is remarkably extensive and it can seem almost creepy how well it “knows us” and our interests.

How are these ads so relevant? It all comes down to a thing called a “remarketing pixel”. 

What Is a Facebook Pixel?

Facebook, Google and other media platforms have what is called a remarketing pixel to track you online. For example, the Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that can be included on any site allowing Facebook to gather information about what you do on the site, what links you click on, what articles you read or what items you purchase.

As an advertiser, a pixel gathers information that helps you track conversions from Facebook ads, optimized advertisements, build target market for future advertisements, find “look-a-like” audiences and remarket to people who have actually already taken some sort of similar action. 

Facebook tracking pixel data helps guarantee that ads are seen by the individuals who are most likely to take your preferred action. This allows businesses to enhance Facebook ad conversion rate and improve ROI. 

Tracking Cookies
The data is collected utilizing “cookies”. Cookies are used to control shown advertisements and to track usage patterns on websites. This data is utilized by companies and websites to infer individuals’s age, gender, and possible purchase interests so that they could make customized ads that you would be most likely to click on. 

An advertisement network business such as Facebook or Google utilizes cookies to deliver ads that relate to the interests of the user, control the variety of times that the user sees an ad and evaluate whether they are marketing the specific item to the customer’s choices.

Cookies act as web beacons to third-party advertisers to automatically collect info about site users and website activity. Some servers even collect the data of the page that referred them, websites you go to after them, which advertisements you see and which advertisements you click on. This is a lot of data that can be used to place powerfully relevant ads or content in front of the user.

You may see a message on a website to accept the use of cookies or leave a website. This is required by law in some states and countries. And the European Union’s GDPR provides even more protections for user data privacy and the control over one’s data.

Big Data and Data Brokers
There are whole industries around data that make billions in just harvesting, holding and reselling massive amounts of data about us, our interests, activities and spending habits. Facebook and other social media advertising platforms are just the tip of the iceberg and as the next decade starts, many debates, court rulings and legislation will need to be introduced to try to regulate this industry. Data privacy is a hot topic, and striking a balance for business and consumers is always a difficult process.

Tech Tuesday is heard each Tuesday on Mix102.5 with Big Poppa and CCNY Tech Engineer Jake Sears. Since 1988, CCNY Tech has been an IT Hardware Sales and Services company. Ten years ago, CCNY Tech has added IT Asset Disposition to it’s offerings.

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