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Off-Facebook activity

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231–240 of 395 posts

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#231
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is related to their app not their website.

Same applies to their app. Doing retargeting for when (a) someone downloads their app but doesn't signup and (b) someone is a customer but has low engagement i.e. is likely to churn.

That may be true, but I still think it's a low-effort way for them to do it, and I expect better from Monzo than this. Plus it tracks people regardless of if they fit in a) or b) - neither of which is the case for me.

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#232
NETFLIX. The regular "payment" records don't concern me but the "custom" records (as recent as last night) do. Is that viewing data or what is this? I've also got "custom" records from HULU, but the last one was in December.

This isn't necessarily sinister... but it certainly raises some questions on what these streaming video companies are telling Facebook on a regular basis.

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#233
post #12

In my profile, they managed to obtain a `PURCHASE` event from Macy's -- for an in-person purchase at a physical store . Macy's has my email address and certainly linked it to my credit card number, but this is nonetheless seriously creepy. I just tried to change my email address on Facebook and discovered that they canonicalize plus and dot variations in gmail.com addresses, and thus claim that the new email address…

That last part makes sense. If you want a different identity, you need to choose a different ID. Better to make you be more explicit about what you are trying to do (multiple accounts), then accidentally split accounts of people who aren't trying to do that.

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one much prefer paywalls. I'd rather be the customer than the product.

My issue isn't that I don't want to pay the paywall -- it's that because people broadly don't prefer paywalls that relying on them rather than a thriving online ad business means they can't hire more reporters, video people, data folks, etc. So at the end of the day, it means I don't get to enjoy as much quality content from the publications that I love. In my view, I end up with the best content when advertisers are…

Online advertising is pretty much always going to be a race to the bottom because everything a website does is just a dog and pony show to get people to watch ads. Why bother putting together quality content when churning out clickbait and low-effort crap generates far more clicks with far less work?

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#235

My first reaction to this was to be creeped out. Even being in the industry how did all of these sites (560) have data about me that they were willingly sending to Facebook without my permission. And while I have a Facebook account, I am not a Facebook user – as in I've logged in twice in the last year to see a neighborhood post or the like. But then I went from creeped out to oh shit as sites I run were on the list.…

> Obviously the sites are not getting the benefit

How is that obvious?

Surely sites would eventually stop going through the extra effort to maintain trackers if they didn't get a benefit?

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#236
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that link. Looks like the infamous "ghost profiles" are officially confirmed now. I wish they would show the ghost profiles as well, but since it's not linked with 100% confidence they are probably not allowing it because it could be a privacy violation if it turns out that the link was incorrect (i.e. they showed a ghost profile to the wrong user).

I'm not sure how ghost profiles are legal within the EU.

They can’t be I think. No way to opt in. Or even to inform the person.

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#237
post #23
post #8

A bit weird that my Monzo seems to be sending data to Facebook?

Hmm, that feels incident worthy. My bank should send precisely zero things to advertising / marketing companies. Have you raised it with their Help team? You should. Unfortunately I cannot as I do not have a facebook account so cannot determine whether or not facebook hold data on me without creating an account.

You might (justifiably) not like it, and it might inspire you to boycott the business or plead for regulatory relief, but it's not an "incident" from their perspective to be intentionally doing what they do to run their business.

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a situation where FB “managed to obtain”. It’s Macy’s directly uploading transactions in order to attribute purchases to their online ad campaigns. It uses email and name etc to match.

I agree. While its easy to point at Facebook and say "they are so creepy" - this sounds like the type of challenge every marketing department faces. "What is the attribution of X,Y,Z ad campaigns?" Connecting purchase + email + 'where the ad happened' via social solves that.

Absolutely, but I think it's time to start asking:

1. Is that ok that we accept this sort of Pavlovian training from anyone, much less for-profit companies?

2. Is it ok now that the entities are so easily able to completely track the effectiveness of their advertising and thus empowered to amplify whatever works to increase their success rather than some metric like human happiness?

Re: Off-Facebook activity

#240
post #217
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s crazy that they do this yet still charge nearly 3%.

They don't charge 3%, they charge about a tenth of a percent (0.11%). What you think of as fees is actually a basket of charges going to different parties. almost 2% goes to your (the purchaser) credit card company to cover the risk of you not paying them, about a percent goes to the store's bank to cover the case when they have to give the money back (either because it was a fraudulent online transaction, or the sto…

And if you’re a savvy customer you get “cash back rewards” from your credit card, meaning some of the fees just end up coming back to you.
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