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> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number.

Newsflash, BuzzFeed's ad networks onboard and sync information about their readers in exactly the same way. Do people think that BF loads Quantcast, Scorecard Research etc onto their site for the good of their health?

That's not to mention the viral quizzes and other data gathering exercises that BuzzFeed invented and sold as a product.

I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

Three reasons:

1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom.

2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that.

3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality.

>> These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number.

> Newsflash, BuzzFeed's ad networks onboard and sync information about their readers in exactly the same way. Do people think that BF loads Quantcast, Scorecard Research etc onto their site for the good of their health? ...

> I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

What you're advocating is basically a circular firing squad.

If you have to be impeccably pure to call out a wrong (and furthermore, only associate with impeccably pure people and organizations), then no one will ever call out any wrongs and they'll fester and grow.

I think it's possible that the author doesn't even know this. Does BuzzFeed have an interface where a user can go to see this information?

The level of understanding that most people have about online tracking is just really, really low, and this author probably wouldn't know about any of this if Facebook didn't have that particular page.

> I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

Not only is the media guilty of many of the popular tech company sins, but they originated them.

* Putting us all into filter bubbles where a few big players control and curate the information seen by the masses? The media did it first.

* Using the aforementioned powers to affect elections and democracy, sometimes adversely? The media did it first.

* Advertiser-supported business models? The media did it first.

* Obsessively optimizing the product for reads/clicks, thus leading to sensationalist clickbait headlines, an overabundance of negativity, and an extreme focus on novelty above all else? The media did it first.

The media doesn't like tech for the same reason you almost always see when any two industries feud with each other: because they're competitors and one feels threatened by other.

Hypocrisy aside, news publications also have significant incentive to go after Facebook because Facebook has become their biggest competitor for attention. You don't need to visit NYT or WaPo for news if your social circle keeps you up to date on the issues you care about. The substitution of real investigative journalism for unverified word-of-mouth stories via acquaintance is definitely something we should be concerned about as a society, but it's also important to recognize that there are significant profit motives at play that should also be examined.
I have no idea why everyone isn't blocking all ads, trackers, beacons, or even using Facebook to begin with. Everyone knows what they are about. An ad-free Internet is a good Internet. Personally I have not seen a single ad online on my computers or mobile in years. You already pay to use the Internet. Keeping a website alive is the cost of doing business, not tracking people and allowing their ads to infect, slow down, or interfere with content.
Right. You'd expect the reporter to compare Facebook's disclosure page with BuzzFeed's disclosure page.

And if BuzzFeed has no such disclosure page, you'd expect the reporter to mention that, and credit Facebook more strongly for having one.

BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News aren't really the same thing. They switched to a seperate url because a lot of people got confused.

Though even if they weren't that wouldn't really invalidate the points made in the article.

It's definitely fair to criticize Buzzfeed etc for these practices, but don't want to stop the reporting on facebook because the buzzfeed business model has overlap. That would surely reduce the total amount of scrutiny on such practices because of all the sites that can't throw stones from their glass houses.
You might be interested in this:

https://www.crowdtangle.com/privacy

The company's clients include many news publications like Buzzfeed. This company is part of Facebook.

And, if people are so upset about it, just run uBlock and Ghostery, like I do.
More to the point building up lists of people's phone numbers and physical/electronic addresses has been how direct marketing has been done for literally centuries. From wikipedia:

> In 1667, the English gardener, William Lucas, published a seed catalogue, which he mailed to his customers to inform them of his prices.

I just have trouble seeing how adding computers to this practice is the line that is too far for people.

FWIW, I wrote a little script back in Feb that you can use in the console on that Facebook advertisers page to auto click "remove" on them all for you.

Here is the github gist: https://gist.github.com/bluetidepro/bfa60c1d63925180daf3dd53...

I run it about every month, and it's crazy how many get added in that time span. There is literally thousands and thousands from brands/companies/etc. that I've never heard of it. It's insane.

Nice job. It looks like Facebook Purity has this built in also.
The author keeps saying 'my data' when the data isn't theirs. The fact that they interacted with a party, that interaction, and who you are, is thier data.

This isn't a theoretical nit pick, this is the law. And it makes sense. If you and i have a conversation, i am free to tell someone else about that conversation, because i was part of it. That is my data, as it is also theirs.

In casual use, if we agree not to tell anyone, that is different, but the default is both parties own it.

This the simple minded use of 'my data' really wrecks what could be a rather interesting ( but not surprising ) piece.

> This isn't a theoretical nit pick, this is the law.

Of course, the law is changing... and in fact, under a lot of laws, it really is "my data".

Much like intellectual property, these laws were established for a particular context, and we've long since moved past that context, raising reasonable questions as to whether those laws are really a good idea.

> And it makes sense. If you and i have a conversation, i am free to tell someone else about that conversation, because i was part of it. That is my data, as it is also theirs.

Are you entitled to a DNA sample from some skin cells that floated in the air while you were having said conversation? Does that conversation entitle you to know of every other place that person goes that day? Are you entitled to share a full recording of that conversation with anyone you'd like?

The lowered price of collecting, aggregating & exchanging information changes the context under which the existing laws were made, raising questions about whether we wish to alter those laws.

I see nothing wrong with calling my contact information "my data," because I feel some ownership over how it is used and disseminated. I strongly disagree with the idea that having an interaction with a business gives them a license to tell anyone anything about our interaction, including (especially) my contact information. I agree it is "the law" right now, but I think that is wrong and should be changed.
I'll see your analogy and raise you a begged question.

You're starting from the assumption that a collection of personally-identifiable information is free to share. That isn't necessarily true of such information.

If you and I have a conversation about a trade secret of mine, then you are not free to tell someone else about the conversation. There are forms of information and transmission that we've agreed by law to restrict.

Why shouldn't we include PII in that? (For another example, consider the privacy of medical data.)

> This isn't a theoretical nit pick, this is the law.

There are exceptions for things like health information or DVD rentals. It's time we start to think about expanding those rules to any commercial use of data about private individuals.

These advertisers are running ads using a contact list they or their partner uploaded that includes info about you. This info was collected by the advertiser or their partner. Typically this information is your email address or phone number.

I like how they purposely give a couple examples, omitting the targeting factors that are more likely to freak people out, such as targeting by lists of names and dates of birth

It's always interesting to me the number of people who come out on HN to advocate vociferously for ownership of their private data, given that HN doesn't even let you delete your account ;)

https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn-faq/#deleteacc...

The Cambridge Analytica scandal was super interesting to me because it reflected an entirely standard and unremarkable data-collection process that I'd seen several times. And yet it filled international headlines. Congress was interested.

It's easy to do. You create some app that has "login with Facebook". That's great for users, right? One less password for them to remember. Then as soon as they log in you make a quick call to the Facebook API, get all their friends, and dump it in some database table.

Even if only a few people log in to your app, you can get a database of thousands of real people.

I don't work for that type of company anymore, but I've been many places where that was bog standard, the very first code you write for a new product.

Does anyone know if the Facebook API has changed now?

Absolutely no control?

Don't use social media and lock down your browser to limit fingerprinting. Your remaining big threats are phone apps and traditional data brokers profiling your credit card usage. Cut out all unnecessary apps, block everything else with a firewall and pay cash. You will then be far more opaque to the private surveillance apparatus than most first-worlders.

One thing I don't quite understand is why Facebook's data about me is my data? In my opinion, it's not. I've never put a single thing on Facebook with the expectation that I'd own it or control it.
I find it amazing that although my list of advertisers is super long, not a single company on there provides a service that's remotely relevant to me or sells something that I would ever buy.

In fact, I've never clicked on an ad on Facebook. Not because I hate ads (I'm ambivalent about them) but because I've never seen anything relevant.

For all of the hype around how persuasive Facebook advertising is supposed to be, to me their ads and personalization are no better than random noise.

The usage of Facebook is free. You uploaded your data voluntarily.

How do people think Facebook pays for running its service?!? Of course you are the product.

I'm curious if I delete (I mean real delete, not disabling) my FB account, do they keep it as a ghost profile of me i.e. Facebook still knows that I exist as a person in the world? I've been thinking about just getting rid of it, not that I use it a lot, but still... One less thing to worry about and less clutter in my life.

The downside to this is that FB is my only channel of communication with some people, but then again if they truly want to contact me they can find a way to do so, although that's going to increase their inconvenience and they might decide against contacting me at all haha.

Mildly ironic since this site uses tracking ads that were blinking in and out of existence all over the page as I was scrolling down the article. I had to stop reading because it was so annoying.
Does anyone know if there is equivalent transparency for my Google account?
On that Advertisers settings page, it is really lame you cannot click through the list of advertisers in one fell swoop, disabling ads from all of them at once. There is no "select all."

No, you have to click the X in the corner of each one, then click View More after every 12 you have disabled. I got through about 140 before giving up.

I think this was intentional.

I wonder how it would be technically feasible to instead of copying data to other parties to just grant them access for a limited time and being able to revoke that access. This would be perfect for a lot of data sharing but I guess there is no way to prevent copying of digital data once somebody can read it.
If your data (or at least data about you) is everywhere, there's only one thing left to do. You'll have to engage in a misinformation campaign about yourself. Send advertisers so much conflicting information about yourself that they can't distinguish the signal from the noise. That way they won't be able to target you.

This may sound ludicrous, but there actually is a browser plugin out there (I don't have a link handy, unfortunately) that confounds meaningful tracking efforts by clicking on each and every ad on every page you view. The pages the ads link to aren't actually displayed to you.

Like I said, it's a crazy tactic but it makes perfect sense. Overwhelm them with data.

Google strongly opposes it, by the way. So it must be on the right track.

Because it's not your data. Just because something describes you, doesn't make it yours.
What I never understood, when I still used FB, they knew everything about me and yet I have not once been presented by ads I was even mildly interested in while on Google it is always spot on... Not sure how they can be so bad to get 0 clicks from me while having all that info. It is like this person: getting car and mortgage ads while fb knows i could not care less about either. Getting rich quick packages, again I do not care about as far as they can see from comments etc. Flights to Thailand for next week while they know I am currently in Thailand. It is the worst targetting I have seen: not unlike the ads of the late 90s.
If that headline accurately describes the situation, in what sense of the words is it "my data" instead of "data about me?"
Data retention and sharing should be illegal because it’s like a dam bursting when any actor, anywhere, lets your data out.

You could literally do everything right for decades as far as safeguarding your data, and then one slip-up could leak it ALL and let services connect you to ALL the other information about you.

Then leave Facebook?
Just like your credit report and score, and that's probably more meaningful.
At what point does the end user feel accountability for giving a free service all of their information? I get that they employ various unsavory tactics (especially on mobile), but remember that this _is_ the Internet after all.
reminds me of this fascinating video about how buzzfeed is playing the system perfectly:

Capitalism, Cultural Disintegration, and Buzzfeed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srhgHzUFd4

The garbage site this content is on is made by idiots. First I get one pop-up, and as I'm about to cross it out another pop-up appears on top of it with the accept button at the same position so that I accidentally press accept.

Stop with the fucking pop-ups if you don't know how to do it!

You work for an online magazine and you weren't aware of this? If you're not the customer you are the product.