What data is Meta (Facebook) hiding about you? For many, Facebook is vital for sharing with friends and relatives. Businesses gain many customers through their advertising on this platform. Meta is a for profit company, and you can’t make a profit on the Internet with just a free service. You have to find a way to profit from all of your non-paying users. The most common method is to display advertising images, and get paid when users click on them. Meta does that, but companies need to show revenue growth. It’s hard to drive your own revenue growth when you provide a passive advertising platform, and depend on your advertisers to grow the advertising clicks.
Meta could just charge advertisers more per click, but that can drive advertisers away, so it was time to brainstorm. What if they collect secret data on their users? Then, maybe sell that secret data to other companies? Now, that sounds lucrative, when you own the platform that so many people are using every day. Meta earns up to $900 per year per user. With 2.934 billion worldwide users, that is $2.64 trillion per year. I think that just broke my calculator … it’s smoking. If you aren’t angry yet, wait until you find out what secret data they collect (and sell) on you.
Phone calls made, and text messages sent, are being collected by Facebook. One source said, “Many users have stated they’ve had a conversation, and Facebook later presents an ad related to that conversation. The founder staunchly disputes this rumor, but Facebook’s tracking algorithms are so good, they almost seem true.” Shopping and travel habits are being tracked through partners outside of Facebook, using Facebook Pixel. Your contacts (details on your friends and relatives), past and current locations, personal information (entered into your Facebook profile), political & religious views, race, sexual orientation, facial biometrics (DeepFace) like Apple uses to unlock your devices, Web Browsing History, all content and button clicks on web pages open in other browser tabs, and even your hand and finger movements on your computer’s mouse. Wait, this opens up access to everything else that you do online as well as on your computer. So, you could be logging into your bank accounts, and Facebook is collecting your username and password. This is what malware does. You know, when you click on a fraudulent link on a website, malware downloads, and you open yourself up to everything from data theft to a ransomware attack. That means that Facebook has their own malware built in!
What does this topic have to do with Dark Data? It’s your data being stored and hidden from you. It’s our mission to reveal your hidden data.
This is a sensitive topic, and I anticipate some push back, so I’m providing numerous references from a wide range of sources for further reading and detailed solutions to protect your data.
- “Facebook and Instagram gathering browsing data from under-18s, study says“
- “What Kind of Data Does Facebook Collect?“
- “How To See Everything Facebook Knows About You“
- “All the Ways Facebook Tracks You—and How to Limit It“
- “All The Ways Facebook Tracks You And How To Stop It“
- “How to block Facebook from snooping on you“
- “Facebook tracks your location even if you think you opted out“
- “Deactivating Your Facebook Is a Waste of Time“
- “How to change your location on Facebook in 2022“
- “This is how much money Facebook earns from your data each year“
- “FACEBOOK STATISTICS AND TRENDS“
- “Meta Privacy Policy“