Facebook tracking has been big news lately. Why are we surprised? When you voluntarily give out your private information, expect it not to be private anymore. Let’s face it, Facebook is a very public platform. If you really want to see what info is out there…choose someone on facebook. Anyone. Just choose them. Take a look at how much you can find out about someone you know. The beauty of it is…they gave you the information, and they don’t even know it!
How Does Facebook Tracking Work?
- Obviously, if you are logged into Facebook on your computer or mobile device, they are tracking every move you make, every page you hit, picture you like, video you watch, etc… This should come as no big surprise.
- If you are NOT a Facebook user and land on any page with a Facebook “Like” button, code or cookie, they can associate your IP Address to that page/search. They can then buy, sell or aggregate that data with any other company that is tracking IP addresses and begins to build profiles on who is behind that IP address. Do that in real time with multiple data aggregators and you can pretty easily out anyone hiding behind an IP address.
- If you are a Facebook user and are NOT signed into Facebook and land on any page with a Facebook “Like” button, code or cookie they can associate your IP Address to that page/search. Once you log back into Facebook, their algorithms can quickly tie your “off Facebook” activity to your IP Address/profile and serve up highly targeted data, ad, videos… leaving you to wonder… how the hell they did that? Well, now you know!
It’s important to note that Facebook is not the only group doing this. Hundreds, if not thousands of organizations and data brokers are building profiles on individuals and their behaviors. Facebook just happens to be the scariest because of what they know about you on their platform.