Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

gist.github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 124 posts

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#101

Post by inferiorhuman »

scubbo wrote: post #33
somat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then facebook gets to track my shadow self.

Why would a person who objects to Facebook tracking them via their actual profile not object to Facebook tracking them via inferences?

I have a hard time believing that Facebook does a particularly good job with its shadow profiles. They can't even figure out which continent I live on or narrow my age down to more than a couple decades off.

For the times I need to wade thru the muck mbasic + adblock means the only ads I see are recommended groups. Those are usually history geeks focused on cities thousands of miles away from anywhere I've been in the past decade.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#102

Post by ssss11 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #90
bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, I got hit with this: "You're Temporarily Blocked: It looks like you were misusing this feature by going too fast. You’ve been temporarily blocked from using it." Anyone using this may want to s/1000/2000/ on the first line.

I got this message once without even trying, I was just clicking the button for "see why this ad was shown to you" and it was always "You are in the USA and 18-35" which seemed pretty vague for very relevant ads. I never understood why they give the option if A. you don't want me to actually check B. you're not going to tell me how you knew I was in the market for a vacuum cleaner

For the facade of caring about user privacy - “look regulators, we even go so far as to tell you why you were shown ads!”

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#103

Post by reducesuffering »

jonas21 wrote: post #85
tshaddox wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untargeted ads are presumably less profitable and thus the preference for untargeted ads is also a preference for fewer ads.

It's the opposite. If untargeted ads generate less revenue per impression, they'll need to show you more ads to make the same amount of revenue.

They’re already trying to maximize revenue and have maximized saturation of ads until their network becomes less sticky by people getting annoyed and not using it.

So you’re getting the same number of ads either way, even if Facebook can’t make more money off you.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#105

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

gmhafiz wrote: post #97
39896880 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lease your behavior to other advertisers, insurance companies, loan guarantors…

How do they know what my behaviours are if I don't have Facebook?

You don't have, but many sites you visit have a Facebook code hidden in their pages that sends data about any visitor to Facebook. Thus Facebook knows a lot about you even if you don't have an account.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#106

Post by Tade0 »

junto wrote: post #3

Cool script. My hack is to live in a country where the local language is not my own, and not the one I have set in my Facebook settings. As a result, Facebook rarely has advertisements that can target me, because my language has been filtered out by the advertisers. When one does appear, it’s nearly always in the local language, so I’m kind of deaf to it and I’m not going to actively respond to anyway. Luckily they h…

I set my language to English (Pirate) a long time ago to similar effect.

The option has been removed since, making me part of an ever shrinking community of essentially random people - not a particularly interesting target for advertisers.

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#109

Post by bravetraveler »

scubbo wrote: post #33
somat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then facebook gets to track my shadow self.

Why would a person who objects to Facebook tracking them via their actual profile not object to Facebook tracking them via inferences?

I'll answer but I don't think you want one/it... They're different. That's why. Simple.

One you're giving them information/still seeing ads

The other, they're guessing and you're free from the mind rot. Distance surely hurts their accuracy.

Can't stop them guessing but you can stop being their authoritative source. You've heard the whole, "we're in charge of our response, not the problem", right?

Re: Show HN: Simple script to cripple personalized targeting from Facebook

#110

Post by namaria »

Galaco wrote: post #66
junto wrote: post #3

Cool script. My hack is to live in a country where the local language is not my own, and not the one I have set in my Facebook settings. As a result, Facebook rarely has advertisements that can target me, because my language has been filtered out by the advertisers. When one does appear, it’s nearly always in the local language, so I’m kind of deaf to it and I’m not going to actively respond to anyway. Luckily they h…

Same situation for me. Basically the only ads I ever see in my native language are for American expat tax services (I’m not American, have never visited the continent and have never expressed interest in doing so). Sometimes I wonder just how good this adtech really all is when the best they can do is figure out I speak English (browser language) and live not in an English speaking country (IP address) and just assum…

A lot of the filtering of whom to show ads to is heuristics to try and target 'high value costumers'. Getting target with very irrelevant ads might just mean you are considered low value by most advertisers so you get served ads from advertisers willing to pay very little per impression.

I'd take as a signal your online cloaking is working as intended. I often get very random ads and recommendations in languages I don't even speak so I think my online anonimity fu is working as intended.

Source - worked with ad tech a few years ago.

Post reply on HN