How much does Facebook know about you ?
Mar 7th, 2013 by annemazin
Liking a page on Facebook is a commonly used tool. With the “like” button which was launched in 2009, you can let your friends know that you are following that page but also be aware of the latest news posted on that page. However, it tells a lot about you to Facebook , known to store those personal data.
A few months ago, the social network, that changed its privacy settings, made it possible to search for people according to specific features. Now, thanks to “Graph search” and using crossed check information, you can actually look for dentists that liked Pringles and Haribo candies, teachers that liked the official page of the Communist Party or army soldiers that went to Iraq. Moreover, even more worrying, some studies were carried out and researchers linking different likes, were able to establish personality traits. For instance, 95% of the time, researchers were able to guess if Facebook users were identifying themselves as black or white and 88% of the time, they were also able to find out if a male user was homosexual. Thanks to those personality traits, it was also quite easy to determine if the user was Democrat or Republican.
But, there’s more. Nowadays, smartphones have a GPS included, which means that when you are posting photos telling where they were taken, Facebook also knows it. Also, by using accessible data such as zip codes or locations, Facebook uses those data to target us better with marketing and advertising. For instance, if you like an artist on Facebook, you will see whenever he is coming to give a concert to the city where you live.
Hopefully, there are some solutions to prevent people from identifying and finding you on facebook thanks to your zip code or that page you liked. First of all, change your privacy settings to make your data only visible by your “friends” and be careful with the pages you like.
Source links =
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/facebook-likes-personality-traits_n_2854403.html
http://gigaom.com/2013/04/04/why-facebook-home-bothers-me-it-destroys-any-notion-of-privacy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21699305