The Ad Industry Has Eyes Everywhere

What Facebook retained about me isn’t remotely as creepy as the sheer number of advertisers that have my information in http://www.officialpacersonline.com/myles-turner-jersey-c-1_9.html their databases. I found this out when I clicked on the Ads section in my Facebook file, which loaded a history of the dozen ads I had clicked on while browsing the social network.

Lower down, there was a section titled “Advertisers with your contact info,” followed by a list of roughly 500 brands, the overwhelming majority of which I had never interacted with. Some brands sounded obscure and sketchy — one was called “Microphone Check,” which turned out to be a radio show. Other brands were Earl Thomas III Womens Jersey more familiar, like Victoria’s Secret Pink, Good Eggs or AARP.

Facebook said unfamiliar advertisers might appear on the list because they might have obtained my contact information from elsewhere, compiled it into a list of people Authentic Marshawn Lynch Jersey they http://www.thunderproshop.com/paul-george-jersey-c-1_21.html wanted to target C.J. Miles Jersey and uploaded that list into Facebook. Brands can upload their customer lists into a tool called Custom Audiences, which helps them find those same James Harden Youth Jersey people’s Facebook profiles to serve them ads.

Brands can obtain your information in many different ways. Those include:

■ Buying information from a data provider like Acxiom, which has amassed one of Authentic Harrison Butker Jersey the world’s largest commercial databases on consumers. Brands can buy different types of customer data sets from a provider, like contact information for people who belong to a certain demographic, and take that information to Facebook to serve targeted ads, said Michael Priem, chief executive of Modern Impact, an advertising firm in Minneapolis.

Last month, Facebook announced that it was limiting its practice of allowing advertisers to target ads using information from third-party data brokers like Acxiom.

■ Using tracking technologies like web cookies and invisible pixels that load in your web browser to collect information about your browsing activities. There are many different trackers on the web, and Facebook offers 10 different trackers to help brands harvest your information, according to Ghostery, which offers privacy tools that block ads and trackers. The advertisers can take some pieces of data that they have collected with trackers and upload them into the Custom Audiences tool to serve ads to you on Facebook.

■ Getting http://www.cheapthundersale.com/detlef-schrempf-jersey-c-1_8.html your information in simpler ways, too. Someone you shared information with could share it with another entity. Your credit card loyalty program, for example, could share your information with a hotel chain, and that hotel chain could serve you ads on Facebook.

The upshot? Even a Facebook lurker, like myself, who has barely clicked on any digital ads can have personal information exposed to an http://www.authenticgoldenknightsstore.com/pierreedouard-bellemare-c-1_8.html enormous number of advertisers. This was not entirely surprising, but seeing the list of unfamiliar brands with my contact information in my Facebook file was a dose of reality.

I tried to contact some of these advertisers, like Very Important Puppets, a toymaker, to ask them about what they did with my data. They did not respond.

http://www.gta-five-forum.com/blog-e51230-Bills-build-love-by-sharing-life-stories.html<br />
http://www.utahimprov.com/x-forum.cgi?show=topic&page=1&topic=2391<br />
http://amusecandy.com/forum/topic/117448<br />
http://www.ifl-forum.com/blog-e18283-Khalil-Mack-continues-to-be-a-leader-for-the-Raiders.html<br />
http://www.nusignsupply.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=59417&p=82796#p82796<br />
http://www.rcracer.com.au/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=176074<br />
http://nikemake.forumcity.com/viewtopic.php?p=1090#1090<br />