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Facebook Lets Users Opt Out of Targeted Ads

Posted by timothy on from the all-twinkies-and-trucks-for-me dept.

mpicpp (3454017) writes Facebook users who are annoyed by the targeted ads that pop up in their News Feed will soon have more control over what they see. Like Google, Facebook collects all kinds of information on its users and uses that information to serve up targeted ads. For some people, especially privacy advocates, it seemed a little creepy to have a social network tracking a user's activity and then using that data to sell them stuff. On Thursday, Facebook announced that users will soon be able to opt out of that targeted ad system through controls in their Web browser and iOS and Android phones. Facebook will also show users what information they have collected about them and let them edit the kinds of ads they want to see. If someone is confused about why they are seeing an ad for P.F. Chang's, for example, they can simply click on "Why am I seeing this ad?"

14 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. But they're still collecting your data. by ITEM-3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So really, nothing's changed.

    1. Re:But they're still collecting your data. by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes it has. They're appearing to be doing something about protecting privacy, so they don't get sued/fined in countries where they have real privacy laws.

    2. Re:But they're still collecting your data. by bhcompy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, things have changed. As part of this announcement they also announced that they will be digging through your browser history in order to provide more targeted ads, rather than just mining what you do through their website and websites that track for them

    3. Re:But they're still collecting your data. by sh00z · · Score: 3, Funny

      Actually, things have changed. As part of this announcement they also announced that they will be digging through your browser history in order to provide more targeted ads, rather than just mining what you do through their website and websites that track for them

      At last, a reason to keep Opera on my computer.

  2. Will they hide the "X" icons again? by Animats · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Facebook is notorious for making the "opt out" icons invisible until you mouse over them. Opting out in Facebook is like playing one of those old Flash games where you mouse around the screen, trying to find the hot spot that will accept a click. Are they going to do that again?

    1. Re:Will they hide the "X" icons again? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Informative

      Opting out in Facebook is like playing one of those old Flash games where you mouse around the screen, trying to find the hot spot that will accept a click. Are they going to do that again?

      Doubtful, since this isn't actually "opting out" of anything.

      From TFA:

      Facebook will also show users what information they have collected about them and let them edit the kinds of ads they want to see.

      In other words, this is mostly a system for you to tell Facebook what you want to see. You're not actually getting rid of ads, but rather giving Facebook MORE personal information to tailor them to you. Again from TFA:

      [Users] can see why they are seeing that particular advertisement and remove entire ad categories, like restaurants, from showing up in their News Feed. [snip] Opting out of the targeted ad system does not mean a user will see less ads -- the ads will just not be targeted towards them.

      This isn't really "opting out." It's allowing you to give Facebook more information about yourself to Facebook so it can better target the ads it shows you.

      Essentially, it's Facebook saying, "Gee, we haven't gathered enough personal info from you already, so we'll let you tell us more explicitly, rather than gleaning it from your 'likes' and posts. This will give us more ad revenue because we won't waste as much time showing you stuff you really don't want to see, thereby increasing our click-through rate on ads."

      Why would Facebook hide this feature? It's not getting rid of anything. It's obviously designed to increase the efficiency of their ad delivery system, which will probably increase ad revenue.

      (And yes, it seems like theoretically you could "opt-out" of ALL personalized ads, in which case it's likely the random stuff Facebook will show you will be even weirder and more annoying than it already is, since it will have no relationship to your potential interests whatsoever.)

    2. Re:Will they hide the "X" icons again? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What I said in my previous post is verified in Facebook's actual press release. If you watch the video, this is what the guy says:

      You can make adjustments to the types of ads you see. To tell us how you feel about an ad, just click the top right corner of the ad, and click or tap on "Why am I seeing this ad?" From there you can learn more about the ad and update your preferences. The number of ads you see won't change, but because we'll know more about what you like, they'll be more relevant.

      That's the whole point of this. It isn't mainly for people to opt-out of targeted advertising. It's Facebook asking you to help them in targeting their ads better.

  3. you can do one better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better solution: don't opt out of the targeted ads. Opt out of Facebook entirely.

    The business model of harvesting personal data for profit succeeds only with the cooperation of the public. Stop cooperating, and it'll stop working.

    1. Re:you can do one better by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Social networks are useful. It's about time we wrote and popularized a distributed one, hosted on our own machines rather than dependent on some group of folks to whom we are products, not customers.

      Diaspora is dead, dude - just get over it.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:you can do one better by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Social networks are useful. It's about time we wrote and popularized a distributed one, hosted on our own machines rather than dependent on some group of folks to whom we are products, not customers.

      Email lists.

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  4. Stalking ads by jones_supa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I see quite commonly these days are "stalking" ads. I watch some products and when I navigate to other sites, advertisements for those products haunt me absolutely everywhere.

  5. Fake your data by Zed+Pobre · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I discovered that if you fake your birthplace, workplace, and university to a country which doesn't primarily use Roman lettering, you get an advertisement bar mostly consisting of completely unintelligible script. It's almost as good as an ad-blocker.

    If I ever get free time, I may go back and poke more at that script I started which takes random public Facebook and Twitter posts, feeds them into dadadodo, and then posts them as hidden to everyone except a list that only has fake alternate Facebook accounts in it.

    We can't stop them from gathering data, but we can chaff it so badly that it's worthless.

  6. opt-out of untargeted ads by Unordained · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like to opt out of the untargeted ads. I don't so much mind relevant, possibly-useful advertising -- I don't feel like it wastes my time so much, or even, in a way, creepily insinuates I would be interested in things I'm totally not. As long as the targeted advertising is done right, I'd rather have it. The more accurate such advertising gets, the more value-per-print it can generate, and therefore the less overall advertising will be required to sustain the "free" services we use. One well-chosen ad is worth dozens of spammy ones.

    Or ... could we get the big advertising systems to allow us to pay them, centrally, to remove ads across all the sites they print on? And have them just forward a portion of the money to the sites themselves, just as they would have paid them to print an equivalent number of ads, while serving me nothing but 1px placeholders?

  7. Ads? by spasm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Facebook has ads? Or rather, there are people out there who still don't have adblock installed?