Facebook (or their computer) reads everything.
A few months ago I happen to mention I would be traveling to a different city. Soon there after I began getting ads feature hotels and events in that distance city. I did not think much about it at the time, but when at a later date I mentioned another city, out popped an ad for that city.
I then started play games with it. I would list a city and see how long it took for an ad to appear. Usually within seconds. At most a minute.
I then noticed when I was posting photos it was “helping” by tagging the photos for me. WTF!!!! I almost missed that one. How do they know who these people are? The answer, they are building a database of photos and peoples names. You then include all the personal information put on Facebook they soon know more about you then your own family.
I started playing games with them. I started posting old photos of strangers and tagging myself in them. They are going to play hell trying to figure out which is which.
I took it one step further and did a google search on my name and then images. I posted about 50 photos of people with my name and tagged them all. The funny thing is the name is correct but now they have to figure out which is the real me.
I do not post much anymore on Facebook, I do read what others are putting up but I am planning on closing my account after the holidays.
I put in the Facebook report abuse phone number as my own. I wonder how many calls I have gotten there.
It’s targeted advertising, the strength of the internet as far as advertisers are concerned. Key word searching to decide which ads hook up. A bit more dynamic than the old method (picking ads based on the content of the story you clicked on) but not really a big deal. I use Ad Block Plus, no idea what ads I’m triggering.
You might think this silly or perhaps even impossible, but it's easy once your in the habit of doing it. For example, use your initials as a first name, and your last name spelled backwards, or switch around the letters of your name to spell something else, use your pets name or just about anything you'll remember, and folks you know and want to have your info can easily identify with you, but no one else will.
As for photo's, that's easy too, always be the one to volunteer to take them, rather then be in them, if one happens to be posted, make sure the name tagged to it is your Internet name, or a first name only.
Guard your privacy as you would your life! You may think all of this is silly and a pain to do, but having been a victim of identity theft twice, trust me, I guard my information very carefully. These suggestions aren't perfect, and perhaps won't work 100% of the time, but they will work 60-80% of the time, and that is a whole lot better then nothing.
Until one’s privacy is invaded in a way that profoundly effects your own life or the lives of your loved ones, it's difficult to imagine how traumatic or even life altering it can be.
Protect yourselves, and teach your children to as well!
you really cannot close your fb account. I deleted everything on my account and closed it. When I came back FB and signed in it chirpily asked me whether I wanted everything back that I had deleted.
It's worse than that. They're using facial recognition software to assist with the photo tagging process. So, if your photo shows up on somebody else's facebook page, voila, they cross-reference with the facial recognition software.