Facebook “does not provide meaningful controls and is misleading in its statements to users and advertisers” when it says its Ads Preferences have tools to control a users ad experience.
According to Aleksandra Korolova and Irfan Faizullabhoy, two privacy researchers, Facebook has created an illusion of control instead of actually giving control, particularly with location-related ad targeting.
Korolova writes in a December 16th, 2018 Medium article that over several months she kept her Location Services setting to ‘Never’ on her iPhone and still received ads targeted at “people who live near Santa Monica” (her location) or “people who live or were recently near Los Angeles” (where she works).
“Moreover, I have noticed that whenever I travel for work or pleasure, Facebook continues to keep track of my location and use it for advertising: a trip to Glacier National Park resulted in an ad for activities in Whitefish, Montana, a trip to Cambridge, MA — in an ad for a business there, and a visit to Herzeliya, Israel — in an ad for a business there.”
According to Facebook, Facebook Ads use location data “to show you ads from advertisers trying to reach people in or near a specific place.” Facebook also says, under “Location Settings,” that when you turn your location settings on the service “lets you explore what’s around you, get more relevant ads, and help improve Facebook.”
Korolova says in her article that she never uploaded photos to Facebook “for years,” didn’t tag content with a location and did not check-in to places. She also didn’t give access to her location on WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger.
“I don’t search for places on Facebook. Yet the location-based ad, using my actual locations, keep coming,” she said, adding that she may have gotten the ads because she was “recently near” a specific location that Facebook can pick up.
Facebook also says that not only does it use your location to deliver ads, but says it gets location data from “Where you connect to the Internet” and “Where you use your phone.”
She writes in her research that Facebook “does not mention there is that exercising all provided location controls will not stop the company from going to great lengths to obtain and use location data for advertising.”
Korolova writes this type of misleading information and targeting ads is harmful because “anyone in the world can create an ad campaign to reach people who have recently visited a particular location, such as a place of worship or an abortion clinic.”
“Imagine opening Facebook during a visit to an abortion clinic in order to communicate with friends for support in a difficult decision, and instead, seeing an ad campaign for cute baby clothes created by anyone who wants to target women making this difficult decision,” Korolova writes.
She adds that Facebook should take better action in being responsible about how it targets ads to users.
Source: Medium
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