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Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

americablog.com

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Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#31

Post by BenoitEssiambre »

This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected.

Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing.

I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to track my web browsing through ads. I'm not sure where they get their info.

For example, last week I bought a new kind of barbecue sauce at the grocery store and the next day Facebook was asking me to like the specific brand's page. It made me wonder. Are banks funnelling purchase information to Facebook?

I never researched this sauce online although I had looked up recipes on how to make homemade sauce through google. But facebook seemed to know the specific brand I had bought.

A similar thing happened to me when I bought replacement windshield wipers for my car a few months ago. I don't know, maybe facebook was just following the weather and knowing that there had been a lot of wiper destroying freezing rain at the time, was suggesting liking major wiper sellers to everybody around here but I still found it suspicious. I had not looked up any wipers online or mentioned that I needed some anywhere and the ad showed up just after my purchase. I know this is all very unscientific. Anybody else have similar experiences?

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#32

Post by Amadou »

jonathanjaeger wrote: post #24

Don't assume everything is pure science and not just mere coincidence. Facebook sometimes gives me military related ads that specifically call out military people -- let's assume the marketer knows enough to put some sort of targeting on their ads, then why would I be getting those ads? There are too many variables at play to know. Also, I've seen some bugs where people get ads specific to one location even though th…

100% accuracy is never going to be possible. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see a price structure for targeted advertisements based on confidence intervals.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#33

Post by nathos »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #31

This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected. Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing. I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to tra…

Thank for for making me feel even better about deleting my Facebook account over 2 years ago.

Edit: also, you may want to look into using Ghostery: http://www.ghostery.com Many (most?) of these trackers are not blocked by the "third-party cookies" setting in your browser.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#34

Post by jonathanjaeger »

Amadou wrote: post #32
jonathanjaeger wrote: post #24

Don't assume everything is pure science and not just mere coincidence. Facebook sometimes gives me military related ads that specifically call out military people -- let's assume the marketer knows enough to put some sort of targeting on their ads, then why would I be getting those ads? There are too many variables at play to know. Also, I've seen some bugs where people get ads specific to one location even though th…

100% accuracy is never going to be possible. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see a price structure for targeted advertisements based on confidence intervals.

Of course. So when someone posts an article with anecdotal evidence towards the way Facebook uses data, we can assume it might be true in thousands of other cases or tens of millions of cases. It's hard to know which though.

A different pricing structure would be interesting to see sometime in the future.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#35

Post by dakotasmith »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #31

This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected. Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing. I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to tra…

> Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing.

Though you say completely outside Facebook, at least it is still just taking signals from other parts of the Internet. Imagine now what Google Now or Glass will be able add!

Seriously though, I think Perfect Audience (YC S11) https://www.perfectaudience.com does stuff like this. Here is a thread describing it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4615408

Edit: Didn't see that you bought the BBQ sauce at the store exclusive without any online behavior. Unless you searched for it or use Mint or a similar service, I am at a loss.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#36

Post by Amadou »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #31

This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected. Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing. I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to tra…

Blocking third-party cookies does practically nothing to prevent such tracking. Web-bugs and supercookies, just for starters, are immune to that.

Install Ghostery to get all the low-hanging fruit - you'll probably want to tweak-up the settings from the default. There are still sophisticated trackers out there beyond what Ghostery can stop. For firefox the Request Policy add-on will give you very good control over that stuff, but it requires a "mechanic's" level of understanding to use without pulling your hair out.

Frankly I am a bit surprised by your naivete - this sort of profiling is big business. Huge. I kind of thought that everyone on here on HN was aware of just how intrusive these tracker/stalkers were.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#37

Post by moe »

mattstreet wrote: post #27
Evbn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offering alcohol to someone you know is pregnant, ugh.

You do know that the medical profession has figured out a small amount of alcohol (a drink or so) after the first trimester isn't a problem, right?

Bullshit.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#38

Post by rm999 »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #31

This is a bit creepy but it is the kind of thing that could be guessed from facebook activity so it is kind of to be expected. Lately I've been seeing ads that correlate with things that happen to me completely outside Facebook. About things on sites I only access through google for example. I find this more disturbing. I checked the "Block third-party cookies and site data" in Chrome so they shouldn't be able to tra…

> last week I bought a new kind of barbecue sauce at the grocery store and the next day Facebook was asking me to like the specific brand's page

Facebook has teamed up with datalogix to track users' offline purchases, but as far as I know this is just for a/b testing and not for targeting/ad serving.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/03/...

It's also quite possible it's just a coincidence; that specific brand happens to be running a campaign on facebook, and facebook either got lucky or predicted you would like their sauce (i.e. did their job well).

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#39

Post by randomdata »

> And in the case of the phone company, if you had a little sexy talk with your significant other, no one was the wiser because you had a reasonable expectation your amorous dialogue wasn’t being stored for posterity.

Was that really an expectation? I'm in my early 30s and still remember having a shared party telephone line for several years of my youth and before machine switched networks, operators were also known to listen in on conversations and spread the latest gossip around town.

The focus on privacy seemed to not really happen until digital cell phones started entering the scene, which is very late in the life of the phone networks.

Re: Facebook knows you’re gay before you do

#40

Post by icebraining »

loceng wrote: post #3

Can they predict how long before I finally am off the Facebook platform?

Never. I don't have a Facebook account, but it'd be pretty naive of me to assume they don't have a profile on me as well, especially since they've already admitted doing so[1].

[1]: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/fa...

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