
How To Opt Out of Facebook Ads Based on Your Real-Life Shopping Activity - marioestrada
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/howto-opt-out-databrokers-showing-your-targeted-advertisements-facebook?ad
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clarkm
Even though I use ghostery and provide unique email addresses to websites I
don't trust, I still feel a bit uneasy about voluntarily providing my personal
information to these companies just so I can "opt out". I know these sites are
legitimate, and I trust the EFF; however, it still feels unnecessary.

Maybe I've just been conditioned by the fake unsubscribe links found in email
spam, but I don't want to accidentally give these advertisers more information
than they already have. Even if they already have complete information on me
(which they undoubtedly do), I don't want to provide them with unnecessary
confirmation that the information they have is correct.

~~~
dsl
I never understood the "fake unsubscribe" thing. In a previous life I did
infrastructure consulting for people with ROSKO listings and they collected
and processed every single unsubscribe. They even traded unsubscribe lists.

Back then everyone was using pinks (contracts with an allowed quota of
complaints per day baked in) for mailing. If you scrubbed your lists against
unsubs and bounces, you got less complaints and could negotiate better rates
in the future.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I agree, I've seen a few but not many, and when they Email me again I just
mark it as spam and never see another one. Email is commanded by algorithms
right now, which take a heap of hints from their users, it's seriously stupid
not to unsubscribe people kind enough to unsubscribe instead of marking you as
spam.

~~~
tripzilch
Last year I read an article about someone doing an experiment with unsubscribe
links on a very old email address. It got loads of spam, and he clicked all
the unsub links (or maybe wrote a script to do it). The amount of spam that
address received decreased _significantly_.

So whether or not the "fake unsubscribe" thing was real (my intuition says yes
it was), it appears that times have changed!

------
D9u
There's always the option to delete your FB account. I went nearly 10 months
without logging into FB last year, and doing so made it quite easy to delete
my FB account at the beginning of this year.

Regular removal of cookies, and LSO cookies, as well as clearing the browser
cache, is also recommended.

Then there's the ubiquitous "Connect" buttons which are spammed all across the
web. Prudence dictates that we avoid connecting our logins across the net in
an indiscriminate manner.

Finally, there are "burner" email addresses which I use only to register with
certain websites. Nearly all of the spam that makes it past my filters is from
so-called "legitimate" websites.

Caveat emptor.

~~~
ordinary
Deleting your account does not stop Facebook from tracking you, unfortunately.

~~~
dmoy
Does Facebook actually delete stuff yet? For a long time they wouldn't delete
accounts, photos, etc.

~~~
D9u
That's a good point, regarding whether, or not, FB actually deletes user data
after we "opt out." Another consideration is how, when Facebook started out,
users were supposed to actually know, IRL, the people on their "Friends List."
I adhered to that rule all the way until my account deletion last January, but
now a great number of users have people on their "Friends Lists" who they have
never even spoken to in real life. This point is illustrated by corporate
entities being on people's "Friend Lists."

As for FB allegedly tracking me subsequent to my account deletion, could
someone explain to me how it could be so? I never posted my actual DOB, nor my
cell phone, the email address I used to register hasn't been logged into for
many months, and I'm using a new ISP - which uses dynamic allocation
addressing.

~~~
kaybe
A possibility could be if your email shows up in your friends' contact list
which FB gets from their email accounts.

FB continuesly harrassing me to give them my email password - of all things to
ask for! - is something I will never get. 'We'll check your contact list for
friends! We won't save your password!' My _email password_! You wanna install
a camera in my room while you're at it?

But some people apparently actually use the service, and thus FB can find out
you exist and who you're friends with. They might also mention you etc.

------
darkchasma
Or, just don't use facebook. I'm not trying to be facetious, if you don't
trust the company with your most personal information then you probably
shouldn't be using their service. Because that is what they trade in.

~~~
RexRollman
From what I understand, Facebook builds profiles of non-members as well, so
they are still a threat.

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Eliezer
I actively prefer ads for things I might actually be interested in purchasing.
If there were an option to tell advertisers "Please show me more ads about..."
I would take that option. whenever I was waffling on some purchase. Most ads
suck even so - they don't actually tell me about a new feature or fact that
could potentially change or spark a buying decision - but at least it's not a
total waste of time.

The only economically productive use-case of marketing is to lead trades to
take place that would not have taken place otherwise, or higher-quality trades
to take place; which can have its roots in consumer gullibility, but ideally
reflects some new company telling me about a relevant product that I didn't
know existed. This happens rarely. Having it happen more often sounds like a
good idea to me.

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w1ntermute
I highly recommend Ghostery. I've been using it for quite a while now and have
no complaints.

~~~
byoogle
Lifehacker just did a comparison of popular privacy extensions and called
Disconnect the best (over Ghostery and others): [http://lifehacker.com/the-
best-browser-extensions-that-prote...](http://lifehacker.com/the-best-browser-
extensions-that-protect-your-privacy-479408034)

~~~
nnnnni
Yeah... You really should have put a disclaimer in there to let everyone know
that you were advertising your own product.

That makes me never want to try the extension, no matter how good it may be.

~~~
bti
I don't think he wrote the Lifehacker article he linked to.

~~~
nnnnni
He was advertising it on HN, not LifeHacker, with that comment.

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HunterV
One thing this shows is just how powerful Facebook could become/already is.
When they connect the dots online and offline of billion user's buying
information and habits they essentially can electronically understand who you
are better than you do, and can predict what you'll do even better. Just food
for thought.

~~~
sillysaurus
_When Facebook connects the dots online and offline of billion users' buying
information and habits, they essentially can electronically understand who you
are better than you do, and can predict what you'll do even better._

Why are people disturbed by this?

~~~
keithpeter
Predictions based on partial data could be problematic.

One example: I pay for fresh food and staples in cash, and buy 'grocery' items
on a card. A data collection system that tracked only card purchases would
give the impression of a very unhealthy diet.

~~~
andyking
This is how it is for me, too. I buy fresh vegetables, fresh meat, milk, eggs,
bread at a local farm shop and pay cash. I buy other things like pizza,
coffee, processed foods at a supermarket and pay with card - and also scan my
loyalty card.

I regularly get offers from the supermarket for money off yet more unhealthy
food - they are blissfully unaware that I eat quite well in reality!

------
jpswade
Am I the only person who would actually prefer targeted ads based on things I
might actually be interested in, rather than the crap I've been exposed to
before.

If you're going to use a walled garden like facebook, you expect to see walls
now and again.

~~~
Evbn
Since they have proven that they are awful at targeting, I don't want it.

The fact is, 90% of advertising exists because the product is not worth buying
in its merits. Word of mouth recommendations and independent research studies
are where good jnformarion comes from. Targeting doesn't help that.

~~~
jpswade
I think every effort they make to better target is only a good thing.
Attempting to block their efforts will skew their results which could lead to
worse ads.

------
sdqali
The method I have found to stop tracking is to use /etc/hosts to block all
traffic to sites that I don't want anything to do with including Facebook and
their CDNs. I based it around
[https://github.com/leto/Util/blob/master/config/etc/hosts.bl...](https://github.com/leto/Util/blob/master/config/etc/hosts.block)
and have added more tracker/advertisement domains as I have encountered them.

~~~
ladzoppelin
Large host files really slow down browsing in Windows. Is their a solution for
this besides clearing the DNS cache every hour?

~~~
emillon
You can block it on your router.

------
vidyesh
Using Ghostery over AdBlock is good but I won't recommend using any of such
tracker blocking extensions to anyone until I know they understand what it
does.

At times these extensions do break websites as they block some vital scripts
on the site. You have to manually unblock that to make sure the site runs fine
on your browser.

I used Disconnect long time ago, but that time it literally broke all the tech
blogs, as its blocking was very crude. The site now looks totally different
and so do the screenshots, would give it a shot.

Oh and by the way I use Ghostery now.

~~~
byoogle
Breaking _literally_ every tech blog would be way hard to do. :-)

We've gotten literally two bug reports about broken blogs of any sort in the
last year (I just checked; and both are now fixed, btw), so I assume there
aren't issues anymore. But if you experience any, let me know!

~~~
vidyesh
When the Firefox extension was released ( I remember it was released as a
Chrome only solution at first ), I tried and all the famous tech blogs used
all possible social buttons and TC had just started with Facebook comments, so
for most sites, half the page loaded and other half was stuck.

The new UI looks great, defintely would give it a try. I actually have no
problem with Ghostery but I like how Disconnect categories all the tracking.

~~~
byoogle
Oh yeah, our original Firefox add-on was outsourced ... and I think kind of
sucked. I learned not to do that (even though the devs were and are great).

Thanks a lot for the feedback on the new UI.

------
arindone
I've said this before and I'll say it again -- why the complaints now, when
Google has been doing this for years? Essentially, they can collect your
information from emails, purchasing habits & financial information from Google
Wallet, income, and combine that with Google+ social data, files you put into
Google drive, and you have a complete profile that's ripe for advertising.

~~~
onedev
I don't quite understand this either. Google have been doing this for ages and
no one has said anything, but now all of a sudden its a thing?

I just want people to acknowledge that what Google has been doing and what
everyone else is doing is essentially the SAME THING. No reason one company
should get a pass over others.

Now as for whether privacy is a legitimate concern or not is another matter
entirely and I think comes down to a bit of personal preference too.

I for one, don't care about my privacy -- to an extent. There I said it. I
don't care if Google knows that I eat somewhere or do something because it's
trivial to me as long as my data is SECURE and I have fine grained privacy
CONTROLS. If you give me security and control, then I'll gladly hand over my
data for a useful service such as mail, or chat, or photos or whatever it may
be.

Privacy in 2013 is different, and we must acknowledge that. This is a new
generation, a new era. If you want to stay disconnected, then you don't get to
experience this new world and if that's your preference, that's perfectly
fine. (note: there will always be a subset of vocal technically inclined
people like many of us on the forum that will try to resist, but in the long
run, we won't prevail; I have ghostery installed for the hell of it, but a
large amount of people don't even know what it is).

I think moving forward, every individual is going to have some type of public
web presence that will be as much a part of who they are as anything else.
Some parts of this presence will be private and tucked away behind anonymous
usernames and private content. Other parts will be open for the world to see.
To an extent, all of this is already true, but think about all the kids born
from 2005 onward. They're only 8 years old now and are going to be part of the
new, always connected generation (meaning, they've never known a world
otherwise).

Therefore I think security of data is more important than EVER. Every company
should make security of user data a TOP priority. In addition, every company
should provide FINE GRAINED privacy CONTROL to allow the user to decide what
he/she wants to show and to whom. On the other hand, a user should expect that
a web company pays its bills through targeting via user data, and should
reflect upon his/her expectation of privacy on the web.

The web is the new TV, but different, and more powerful, much more powerful.

------
troymc
Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if they somehow
know the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it.

~~~
sillysaurus
_Another line of defense it to install an ad-blocker, so even if Facebook
somehow knows the perfect ad to show you, you probably won't see it._

Why wouldn't you want to see it? A perfect ad is a win for the consumer.

~~~
troymc
A perfect ad is one I asked for, when I asked for it, like in Google or Amazon
search results.

I go to Facebook to check on friends. I don't want a fried-chicken billboard
to appear beside the photo of my friend's new baby. It's the wrong context
(even if I'm craving fried chicken).

~~~
chii
what if it was a baby shower gift? What if they managed to connect enough dots
to know that this is what you want, and thus, make the sale via this channel?

~~~
gordaco
I still may not want to make the purchase via that channel. In fact, I find
most important to be able to enter any web to read its content without those
distractions. If I want to buy something, I'll go to any online store, thanks.

------
adityar
if they're using hashed emails for tracking, we're pretty much clucked. There
is an option in gmail that can prevent this.

if your email is abcd@gmail.com, use abcd+sitename@gmail.com (gmail will
ignore the stuff after the + ). You can also use . separators.

Now, to keep track of that...

~~~
nitrogen
Since Gmail's account name semantics are well known, the top data collecting
agencies have no doubt adapted by now.

Also, frustratingly, a lot of sites will break, often silently, if you give
them an e-mail address with a plus symbol (e.g. it might end up in a GET
request to an internal API without proper escaping, and be interpreted as a
space).

~~~
Amadou
Yes, the only way to go is your own domain. Use an add-on like Virtual
Identity for Thunderbird to keep track of which From address goes with which
recipient. <https://www.absorb.it/virtual-id> (their cert seems to have
expired over the weekend)

~~~
Evbn
I do wonder when/if trackers collapse all addresses on a small domain into a
glob. They totally could.

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Evbn
> product warranty cards

Why hasn't the FTC shut this scam down yet?

------
Evbn
> phone number

Holy cow FB uses my private security tokens as a source of ads?

