I Didn't Tell Facebook I'm Engaged, So Why Is It Asking About My Fiancé?

[Julian Englis]

A good example on how Facebook mines data from innocuous posts:

The morning began with my typical browsing routine: email, top-reads RSS news feed, a brief scan of Twitter, then Facebook. I found friends wrapping up at SXSW, some chatter about Kony, pictures of new babies, and then I noticed something out of the ordinary in the right hand column:

how well do you know nick smith.png

It's not the first time I've gotten an engagement ring advertisement. But what's this? Facebook is directly asking me to comment on the nature of my relationship to Nick Smith? That's something new. And weird.

Because, as it turns out, Nick Smith and I are engaged.

We contacted Facebook to ask them about what might have happened. A spokesman got back to us right away. First, the placement of the ad and the question was an accident. That is to say, Facebook wanted to show me the ad and it wanted to ask me the question, but the fact that they showed up at the same time was coincidental. Second, I was probably targeted for an engagement ring ad because of some things I posted about our wedding or on the basis that I'm a woman of marrying age. Third, Facebook's spokesman said that my answer to the question about Nick was just for Facebook's social graph, not for advertisers.

More here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/i-didnt-tell-facebook-im-engaged-so-why-is-it-asking-about-my-fianc/254479/

[SheilaT]

1. Yet another reason to make only

minimal use of such social media.

Have you had a chance to hear about how Target figures out if women are pregnant? One father of a teen got upset because his daughter was receiving coupons for pregnancy and baby related stuff. Turns out Target had figured out that the girl really was pregnant and Dad didn't know about it yet.

Something or another you've posted or linked to has given it away.

I have a Facebook page but I have posted minimal things about myself. Which reminds me, I need to make sure all of my privacy settings are very high.

[madokie]

2. I do email and only a little of that

keep the cookies turned off on my computer so no one can put a cookie on my machine

[Xipe Totec]

3. email is heavily mined as well

unless it's encrypted, and sometimes even if...

[RKP5637]

8. Are you speaking of web based email or email from a PC based email tool, or both. My take is

web based email is an open invitation for corps. to parse and use your private email as they wish.

Email sent by a PC based email tool, no, but definitely by DHS and similar on key words. ... probably some ISPs too.

[madokie]

25. Fairpoint.net

my ISP. I started off with the company when it was locally owned then fairpoint communications bought them out so they got me along with the local company. I don't do any gmail or yahoo or any of the others.

[RKP5637]

28. Yep, that's what I do too, just my local company, not "gmail or yahoo or any of the others." n/t

[Xipe Totec]

33. The internet is nothing more than an interconnected network of isps

Each server along the route can sniff out and mine the emails. Even if your ISP is not Google, Comcast, Verison, or Yahoo, chances are every single one of your e-mails flows through their servers at some point from you as a source to whatever destination you sent your email to.

[RKP5637]

34. I wonder how secure VOIP is? n/t

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, same here!!! Also, I would never have a Facebook or Twitter account either. n/t

[anti-alec]

73. I dumped Facebook six months ago.

I'm a happier man for it.

I don't care what other people think. Social media can hurt you if you let them.

(My FB account is still active, but I'm not using it at all)

[Rex]

4. The add that just popped up on DU was for wedding rings!!!

The Internets has become intuitive!!! WARNING!!! Intuitive thought leads to total cognition and then BAM...SKYNET!

I for one am getting the canned veggys all lined up in alphabetical order in my fallout shelter!!!

[RKP5637]

9. It's probably just a matter of time. "I for one am getting the canned veggys all lined up in

alphabetical order in my fallout shelter!!!"

[Rex]

12. They will say, 'impossible how could that happen?'

And in all that time they were teaching (indirectly) the child how to walk and talk. Yet it learned to think instead. Think for itself.

Oh BTW...I have some room if anyone wants to join me...we will have dogs to warn us of cheesy oneliner killing robots!

"Let me in I want to kill you."

Thankfully it will take another 100 years for Skynet to learn how to lie.

[RKP5637]

13. It must be the water!!! Have lots of chemical free water on hand! n/t

[Rex]

16. Too late...you drank some of the water yesterday!!!

I know it was just a quick sip...but still, that is all it takes then BAM...Skynet!

[RKP5637]

18. Yep!!! LOL

[virgogal]

19. Now there's an ad for a place for the wedding reception. Scary stuff.

[freshwest]

5. Same way as google and yahoo have joined together. They said they would be reading the content of

Emails in the accounts to tailor ads for those with yahoo accounts. Same with youtube, gmail, etc. I don't do gmail, twitter, myspace or facebook.

But I started with youtube and made some friends there years ago, but we contact through email now, not youtube as we don't go there much anymore. I only maintain it for playlists.

We were having trouble instant messaging through yahoo, so we started with myspace. Then myspace got to be too much, and we tried facebook. This was years ago.

Since then, people I know and don't know have their updates and invitations sent to my email. Or so I thought. It turns out it was a bot by facebook. I'd answer invitations that were allegedly by people I'd contacted in emails on political campaigns, asking me to friend them on facebook.

But when I responded, I got this 'who the hell are you' answers and we found that they hadn't initiatied any contact. Like me, they had made their facebook accounts as private as they knew how to do.

So most likely, since facebook puts a cookie on your computer to show all the places that you go, they have followed your emails, read them and know all the email addresses you've ever contacted.

That's all I can say. I have not been signed into facebook for years, but still get updates from people I have no real relationships with. No one that I know personally contacts me there. I'll get around to asking DUers how to shut the account down completely; but I'm sure the damage has been done by google, yahoo and facebook to spread my thoughts around.

So that's a lot, it's my experience, and I don't think that you can expect any privacy with a facebook account at all. Good luck and congratulations on your engagement.

[mackattack]

11. facebook used to

not let you cancel your account at all. Sure you could close it but they still maintained all your comments and email info. Its like abandoning your car on the highway. Sure you dont use it, but people can still look inside and see your license plate and all that.

I think they updated it know so you can completely do away with it. Try logging back in and canceling it now. It may work under the newer system.

[freshwest]

21. I'll give it a try. My friends and I still have myspace accounts that just sit there.

And the last time I tried to get into it to close it they wanted more data!

I hope Face book doesn't do that to me. After I had to give them my cellphone number to start using IM years ago, was my first time getting spam cellphone messages and voicemail.

For crying out loud, I was getting texts from Ralph Reed and his ilk and they still come in occassionally. So they must have sold my cellphone number to rightwingers immediately.

The greater problem is that the other ways of social networking are dying out. DU has about 100K less members than I when I first signed on. Other sites where things were busy and people could chat, have turned into ghost towns as the members set up mirror groups on Facebook. Others have gone into Twitter and never return.

So the CIA, NSA or whoever it is must be loving all of this. I see a number of vendors now only sell or give product information through their acccounts on Twitter or Facebook. We are being captured in a world wide drift net.

While I'd like to achieve a Nirvana-like state of total disinterest and or the default comfort zone of 'it's for our good but we just don't understand' state, I can't, really. People do need to connect, exchange data and ideas and it's been infected with greed and abuse. Oh, well.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[leveymg]

7. FB exists only to data mine and profile you for advertisers and intelligence agencies. It is not

your friend. Find a way to drop it as a means of staying in touch with your friends and family - unless that doesn't bother you, and apparently it does.

[RKP5637]

17. Yep, and similar to Google, Yahoo, Twitter, all of them. They are in it for the money. Nothing

is free about these services, they want your private data, as you said, for "advertisers and intelligence agencies." They are not your friends.

[_ed_]

36. Then don't use them

No one forces you to use Google or Facebook.

Why can't they make money from ads on the internet? Are you demanding free services from them? Do you work for nothing?

I'm an internet advertiser. We don't want your "private data." We purchase and use demographic info to better target ads. If you want to opt out, simply don't use Google or Facebook.

On the other hand, how much are you willing to pay for a Google search? To upload a photo to Facebook?

[RKP5637]

43. I don't use them. Typically, anymore, I use alternatives to Google and anonymous searches. I don't

begrudge advertising. ... but I don't want to be an open door.

[leveymg]

57. What search engine alternatives? Would like to know why you think any are safe.

[RKP5637]

58. Use proxify.com, for example.

https://proxify.com/

Use the SSL version.

[leveymg]

60. Thnx. I'll look into that.

[RKP5637]

62. If you subscribe, then their system is always available. During heavy usage periods they

restrict the site to subscribers only.

[leveymg]

56. ed - you may not want private data, but there are those who do.

I have no objection to Google or FB or any of the others gathering randomized anonymous data stripped of all identifiers and then selling it to marketing companies. That is provided that they actually have in place and always follow the necessary safeguards and keep their data secure.

However, there's substantial real market value to these services from gov't agencies such as NSA which do purchase the data of aggregators, as well as consumer data along with DOJ fees paid telcos for diverting, gathering, storing and producing both warrant Title III and Administrative Demand Letter and warrantless FISA telco/ISP records.

Other country intel agencies do the same, and there's a constant effort made to hack into commercial data by sundry and all, including privatized intel companies.

[_ed_]

66. Of course

That's a separate issue that I could talk about all day. I was just making the point that, as an internet advertiser, it's not only that we can't access names but even if we could that information would be useless to use for the most part. We're only looking at millions and millions of searches and demographic trends. What one person does on one website is utterly useless to me.

[_ed_]

39. Not just Facebook

This is ubiquitous on the internet, and is the primary way of monetizing a website with content. I do this for a living. Facebook exists to make money, just like every business. They do it by selling ads and mining the data that people freely, publicly post on the internet. Facebook is free.

We just started targeting ads from Ticketmaster to Amazon. When you search for tix in ticketmaster, they sell us that info and then we retarget you a few days later on other sites like Amazon. It's amazingly successful.

Like I've said elsewhere, there are two options: targeted ads like there are now, or subscriptions for Facebook, Google, etc. Or, just use snail mail and only communicate in person.

[mackattack]

10. Their business plan

is to read your posts, look at your demographics, and target ads to you that are likely to be interested in.

I get all politics ads. I get ads to visit Ireland and Scotland (likely targeted because of my last name). That's how it works. They are in this to make money.

[_ed_]

40. Why is that wrong?

Businesses are there to make money. Should they run Facebook as a charity? What's wrong with making money on the internet?

Wouldn't you rather ads that might interest you instead of ads that aren't targeted at all? (I do this for a living).

[mackattack]

49. Let me check if I said it was wrong in my post

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Just checked. nope, I never added any normative values at all. Just stated a fact. Sorry that you wanted it to be an attack against that business model.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I use mine for posting stories ans self promotion as a writer

Same with twitter...I am positive my FBI file is growing. No, not conspiracy, I got one when they did a background when we came to the states, it grew when we applied for citizenship. When I married to the navy, yup, and now doing occupy work, you got it.

I should foia it one of these days.

[onehandle]

15. Facebook are novices at this. Google is the real threat.

A Facebook user volunteers a certain amount of personal data. Facebook extrapolates much of the rest.

You don't give Google as much information. So they use a digital crowbar to get the rest. And sell it to Chinese hackers and Russian mafia.

[LuckyLib]

20. Never use Facebook. And still, through email, get targeted ads related to topics

discussed in email, very soon after the messages have been exchanged. It is VERY creepy.

We are screwn.

[_ed_]

37. Creepy?

About as creepy as advertising fishing gear near lakes and oceans. It's just targeted ads. What is so scary?

I do this for a living. Do you think Google should provide you with a search engine for nothing? Should they declare themselves a charity?

I always tell people that even if we could tie demographic info to actual people, I wouldn't care. Actual names are irrelevant to us. We're only interested in what large demo groups do with their online money.

[_ed_]

41. If you have evidence that Google is selling information

to hackers or organized crime, please forward it to the Justice Department. Otherwise, this is slander.

[lob1]

22. Now I'm scared.

I got two ads in the mail asking me if I'd like to be cremated. I'm 73. Do they know something I don't.

[Rex]

23. Have you ever talked about cremation on the Internets?

emails, posts in forums etc?

[lob1]

26. No, but I got my ads in the regular snail mail.

I'm sure they targeted me because I just turned 73, and they can get that info off of public records.

[RKP5637]

29. Yep, I get stuff like this too via snail mail gotten via the public records. n/t

[_ed_]

44. I'm an internet advertiser

The reason you got that ad is because you are 73. People in your demographic group utilize funeral services more than other demo groups, so it's likelier that you would patronize such an ad. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's the same reason that women in their late 20s and early 30s get baby ads, and the same reason we don't target down coats to people in Hawaii.

[Julian Englis]

24. This story's a good reason to use a pseudonym on Facebook.

Even though using a pseudonym is against Facebook rules.

Of course, the reason it is against their rules is that gives them less data to mine and sell.

[_ed_]

45. I'm an internet advertiser

This will not work. We only care about your demographic info, not your actual name. (I couldn't care less about names, totally irrelevant to what I do even if that info was even available).

We track the behavior of your ISP on your Facebook account. You can call yourself Daffy Duck, but we still monitor what you do and where you go.

[dana_b]

27. It keeps suggesting that I befriend my landlord

and I do not talk to or about my landlord anywhere on the internet except in personal e-mails.

[_ed_]

46. You gave them permission to mine your email

when you joined. Read the fine print. You could have opted out of this, but you clicked through the "terms and conditions."

Facebook is free, you can quit anytime if this is an issue. But, every website does this. If you think it's just Facebook, you're sorely mistaken. Amazon? Yup. Every major newspaper? Yup. DU? Yup (no matter what they say).

[dana_b]

59. yeah - I figured that later

stupid me!!

[customerserviceguy]

30. Well, there's always the strategy

of ignoring online ads. Seems to have worked pretty well for me.

[Go Vols]

31. you

may be ignoring them,but I dont think thats the point.

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. a better strategy is blocking the damn things.

Ghostery takes care of the "hidden" cookies, and Ad Block does the rest.

But the "new" Gmail has a "sliding ad" that appears when you open an email...I am dumping the
"new and improved" gmail asap.

[_ed_]

53. Yes, but if enough people start using ad blocking software,

companies like Google will have to react. There aren't enough people who use this software now, but once enough do, it will all be over. Google has to make money, so using ad blocking software is essentially getting their search services for free.

[customerserviceguy]

67. And the problem is what?

Screw Internet advertisers. Whether you use software to remove their crap from your computer, or you just go for old-fashioned ignoring them, screw them.

[_ed_]

68. Screw you

I am an internet advertiser. Why do you think you're entitled to services on the internet for free? It's just like stealing cable TV back in the day. You are stealing services that are paid for by advertising.

Do you pay for an internet connection, or do you just steal that, too? How about the computer you use to access the internet? Did you steal it?

[customerserviceguy]

72. I'm entitled to ignore any and all advertising

And you're not entitled to force anyone to pay attention to your ads. And since I pay my phone company for an Internet connection and paid Dell for my computer, I have a right to use them in any lawful way I see fit.

[_ed_]

74. OK

Let's see what happens to your ad-blocking software going forward. I can't wait until you can't use it anymore and you get bombarded with my ads all day long.

[Jim Lane]

32. Question about using Facebook on a public computer

I'm not worried about the information I provided to Facebook. I assumed from the start that, privacy settings be damned, everything I knowingly gave them would be completely public for all practical purposes.

This business of monitoring my emails and web browsing scares me, though. Suppose I stop accessing Facebook at home and check my account only at a library, on a computer used by many other people. Would that thwart this kind of invasion? (Maybe I'd need to prepare for that by deleting any current Facebook cookies on my home computer?)

In fact, I wonder if it would sabotage their whole project, by giving them a false indication that I'm interested in whatever gets Googled by the next person who settles in at that terminal.

[_ed_]

47. Don't worry

Accessing Facebook at home vs. at a library is irrelevant. I'm an internet advertiser. We don't care about your name; we don't even get to ever see your name. We only care about your demographic group(s). What people like you do, not what you do. Individual records of internet behavior would not be of any value to me at all.

It's probably more pervasive than you think. For example, we do ads on Amazon that show up a few days after you went to ticketmaster to purchase tix for a show, but then didn't actually buy anything. We hit you with an ad on amazon a few days later to remind you about the show you didn't purchase tix for.

There's literally a million examples like the one above. The only way to avoid internet advertising is to not connect to the internet.

[Jim Lane]

65. Sorry, I don't understand this.

You write that the ads are keyed to demographics, not my browsing: "Individual records of internet behavior would not be of any value to me at all." But then you say that I might get an ad for a show if I visited Ticketmaster but didn't buy the tickets for it. How would you (the advertiser) know that without individual records of internet behavior?

[_ed_]

38. I don't understand the controversy here

Facebook and Google, for example, are free. When you use their services, you agree to share your demographic info with people like me who target you for ads.

The other option is to pay for each Google search or for a Facebook membership. Does anyone want that? How much are you willing to pay for these services?

This issue boils down to: "I want Google and Facebook to be free, and I also want them to provide me with their services in a way that precludes them from making money."

The solution is simple if you want to get away from internet advertising: unplug, and only communicate via the phone and via written correspondence.

Internet advertising isn't going to change or go away.

[RKP5637]

48. I think what has happened is a misunderstanding. BTW, I agree with what you say, these

services can not be for free. The ROI would be laughable. It needs to be really evident that information is being mined to support the services. Right or wrong, people implicitly expect privacy.

Often, at least in the beginning, the use of information was not clear to users ... so, IMO, a mistrust has developed ... and a feeling that these sites are exploitive.

Most do not think about the ROI when they use free services, and how those services might be supported, and how the information they provide might be used.

[_ed_]

50. I disagree

Terms and conditions are always easy to find. People click through them without reading them, which is their own fault.

There's no free lunch...

[RKP5637]

51. Not in the early days there weren't, and then they were long and confusing. And many sites

were not upfront in the least about what they were doing. In fact, many had no terms and conditions.

[_ed_]

52. No terms and conditions?

Where and when was that?

[RKP5637]

54. If you go back to about the mid-nineties, T's & C's were very weak if at all in existence. Privacy

on the Internet was scant. In fact, the position held by some was that the information would become so voluminous that privacy would not be an issue, and firewalls were a novelty to many.

[flobee1]

42. First rule of facebook or any other

electronic media-never write ANYTHING you don't want the entire planet to know. I try and have fun with it myself. I'll do google searches for gopher traps, snuggies, and ford pinto alternators and see what kind of ads pop up

[dana_b]

61. I was talking to a classmate last night

who also happens to be a lawyer and she said that she cannot/will not ever sign up for one of the online services because of this. Her e-mails could be seen/shared and there could be lots of legal problems for her and/or her clients. She also tells her clients to be careful in their e-mails because they tend to "go off" and she is afraid that they have FB, Twitter, etc.

[Hosnon]

55. Not only do I not view this as bad, I view it as good.

Google recently integrated all of its products so it can better "know" me. And I've noticed a positive change - most, if not all, of the ads I see on Google's sites are interesting/relevant to me. Less and less advertising spam is getting through.

Google has made it easier for me and companies with products/services I am interested in to find each other. I view this as a good thing.

And I agree with _ed_. These services are free and we are the products. This has been the business model the entire time? Why are people acting like it is shocking now?

Perhaps such sites should just offer a subscription version without ads.

[excuse not to write]

63. Facebook Is Borg!

[Rochester]

64. Ad Block Plus

makes the internet so much more enjoyable without all these damned ads cluttering up my screen, bogging down my computer and connection and clamoring for my attention.
If I want to buy crap I will go and look for crap. I do not want the crap to come to me.

[cleanhippie]

69. No one forces anyone to fill out the personal info on Facebook.

I fail to understand why people get outraged when the personal info that they willingly provided get used in such a manner.

The easy fix: DON'T GIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFO TO FACEBOOK!

geesh!

[TheManInTheMac]

70. I dumped my Facebook account after I posted a picture of myself

and immediately got an ad for cheap prescription eyeglasses. I thought "holy chit! if their software can immediately tell that I wear glasses, what else can they figure out just from my pictures?"

I'm not saying Facebook is bad or good. I got nothing against cheap prescription eyeglasses. Amazon knows what I like and recommends things to me. I don't mind that; in fact, it's kind of handy. I'm just a regular, boring guy with nothing to hide, but that doesn't mean I want to be an open book. Social media is a cool and easy way to keep in touch with people, but just remember: you aren't their customer, you are their product.

[TheManInTheMac]

71. Oh, holy hell! Just after I posted this, DU is recommending cheap eyewear.

And now they're advertising how to recognize depression. They don't even know what I'm writing yet. I'm out of here.