Wasting your breath criticizing Facebook’s updated data and ad policies is just as pointless as lambasting Google or any other company for wanting to earn more revenue based on user preferences. It’s called staying in business. While there are ways of remaining anonymous on the web, pray tell us why a normal individual would need to do so?
Whether you’re on on Facebook, surfing the web or simply walking around, advertisements follow you wherever you go in different guises. Sometimes one can come in the form of a friend in wearing an awesome pair of sneakers you just must have. Such a promotion is not being shoved in your face at least, but it’s not like marketers are actually reaching into your wallet and taking your money; they leave that to the government to do.
Facebook’s latest announcement clarifies the kind of information it obtains from you and the simple answer is ‘everything.’ The ads you see apparently depend on the stories you click in News Feed, the Pages or posts you like, which business’ sites or apps you use and so on. Did you pay attention to the last criteria we mentioned? That’s right, the social network also peeks at the websites, devices or applications you frequent even when you’re off it.
But don’t freak out yet, a lot of companies do this. If you’ve noticed how Google tends to show you more ads from the portals you visit while browsing the Internet, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Facebook does claim to exercise some self control on how it goes about distributing sensitive data to marketers. For example, it promises not to share your name, contact details or any other personally identifiable information with promoters.
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At the same time, data on where you live, your age, your gender and similar generic stuff may be turned over to advertisers wishing to sell to a specific audience. You can always control the kind of campaigns you see in News Feed by clicking on the menu on the upper right corner of an ad and updating your preferences. Facebook gives you the choice to banish a certain promotion from your view or hide everything from a particular brand too.
The information flows both ways – the details advertisers and marketing partners share with Facebook, such as your email ID they may have acquired from you previously, also play a role in the sort of ads you’re served. It’s important to realize that the site is just as keen as you to make sure you aren’t bothered by the advertisements you’re seeing. Businesses pay the company to promote their content after all.
Also see: Facebook showcases fresh News Feed controls for ‘Unfollowing’ people
This means it has to make sure it can help them reach a well targeted audience. So rolling out an easily comprehensible way for fine-tuning what kind of ads you’re bombarded with is not only in the social network’s best interest. With the new tweaks to Facebook’s policies, when you opt out of one kind of advertisement on a device, the same change will reflect across all platforms through which you sign in.
Hate something about the latest ads and data collection policies Facebook is prepping to launch? You have until November 20 to offer your comments through this link. There’s also a Privacy Basics page to help you understand the site’s T&Cs better.