Know How Facebook Is Secretly Keeping A Watch On You Learn How To Stop It

This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon.com(and affiliate Sites/Stores.)Any One Can Shop from this blog.Using links to these sites means I may earn a small percentage from  purchases made at no extra cost to you.

Hey Everyone!,

                 Know How Facebook Is                                  

                   Secretly Keeping A Watch 

                          On You 

                     Learn How To Stop It

Photo:Sameer/auracompletsolutions.blogspot.com/ AdobeStock

It is possibly the worst kept secret in tech that Facebook is spying on you. Mark Zuckerberg is keen to know absolutely everything about you, he is prepared to go to some pretty shameful lengths do so like tracking people’s smartphones who don’t even have the Facebook app, and then when he gets your personal data he’s not exactly careful with what he does with it or who he shares it with. Everybody remembers the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Yep, this is all known and this probably why you want to stop Facebook tracking you and collecting your private data.

It is possible to stop Facebook spying on you and by the end of this article you’ll know how to do it. Let’s get started.

How and why Facebook tracks your data

Facebook makes more money, the more information it knows about you. The more accurate the data, the higher price they can charge advertisers to access it. That is why Facebook doesn’t just track people who actually use Facebook. Sure, Facebook is very good at tracking Facebook users by their Facebook accounts, likes and shares, Facebook cookies, and then also tracks users across other apps it owns like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Facebook goes further than this though, giving third-party websites what it calls a Facebook Pixel, which allows the site owners to analyze the effectiveness of their ad campaigns. Facebook of course, uses this data too meaning it has data on anybody visiting any sites with a Facebook Pixel. This all means it is difficult to stop Facebook tracking your data, but, importantly, it can be done.

How to block Facebook tracking your data

Opt out of ads

Your web behavior follows you around wherever you go. Advertisers want to get their hands on this so that they can show you relevant ads for products that your behavior tells them you want or need. This is the basic formula that pays for the modern internet as we know it today. You can opt out of this ad tracking relationship, however, by using certain online tools that are different depending on where you are around the world. Doing so will put up a block to the tracking that Facebook carries out. You’ll still get Facebook ads, they just won’t be target ads based on you data.

If you’re in Europe, you can opt out of advertising based on your web behavior by going to the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance homepage. If you’re in the USA, you can opt out by heading over to the Digital Advertising Alliance. The name of the organization Canada is the same as it is the USA; click here to go to the Canadian Digital Advertising Alliance.

As we’ve just mentioned, however, this underpins the whole of the modern internet so don’t expect this process to be easy. Stick with it though, and you will get it done.

Browser plugins

Your browser is Facebook’s main tool for tracking your online behavior. This means you can set up your browser to be your first line of defense. You can use third-party plugins to add certain protections that will block tracking protocols.

Limiting scripts

One such protocol that you can limit to better protect your privacy is the scripts. Scripts can alert advertising trackers to your presence whenever you log on to a website. This means if you block a website’s scripts, you can prevent the advertising trackers from knowing you’re there.

An excellent free plugin you can install on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari for free is uBlock Origin, which gives you the option to block scripts across all sites and then white list sites you can trust. Another fantastic little plugin you can use is Privacy Badger, which is very easy to use. If you’re reading here about advertising trackers and scripts and thinking you’re out of your league, then this is the plugin for you. Privacy Badger makes it very easy for you to control which scripts track what. It is important you get this right because many basic web functions rely on scripts so blocking the wrong ones could be like shutting off the internet.

Automatic cookie deletion

Another type of plugin you can download will address a problem you probably know more about. Cookies are much more well known than website scripts. Cookies remember the choices and actions you make on certain websites and Facebook can then read these to get an understanding of your online behavior.

If you’re a Firefox or Microsoft Edge user, you can set your browser to automatically delete your third-party cookies every time you close your web browser. You can find a guide on how to do this for both browsers here. If you’re a Chrome user, however, there is no such option. Fortunately, though, there is a browser plugin you can download for Chrome, imaginatively called Cookie AutoDelete that will do the trick. Install it and set it up on your Chrome browser to fight back against Facebook.

Dedicated privacy-protecting browser

Another great option for making it much more difficult for social networks like Facebook to track your online activity is to use a browser that is dedicated to protecting your privacy. This will mean ditching Google Chrome, as Google is perhaps the only other company on the planet that is as good as Facebook is at tracking your data. In this regard,strongly recommend the Brave browser, which is committed to protecting your privacy.

Brave does not collect any user data, unlike Chrome, and comes ready-made to block third-party and advertising cookies. This means you don’t have to worry about which security plugins or addons to install as all the functions are already a part of the Brave browser. Brave is actually trying to readjust the modern internet model that we described earlier and push web developers to rely less on advertising by offering something called Brave rewards instead. If this mission is successful, you won’t need to block Facebook tracking as it won’t be such a lucrative business anymore. What’s even better about Brave is that it is based on the opensource Chromium code that built Google Chrome meaning it also works with your Chrome browser plugins too.

Hope you enjoy reading  this;)

What Do You Think?,Do let me Know or Do you agree or Disagree or Have any other ideas?Please Share your thoughts in the comments below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me!”

Bye for Know,

Sameer 

There’s more to that

If you’re looking for more,Please subscribe to my blog by clicking on Subscribe in a reader the icon or Subscribe via Email by submitting your email id on the side bar ;)

• FaceBook,Technology,Secretly,Optimize

Like it? Share it…

Know Understand How Facebook Is Following You Learn Ways To Make it Stop

This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon.com(and affiliate Sites/Stores.)Any One Can Shop from this blog.Using links to these sites means I may earn a small percentage from  purchases made at no extra cost to you.




Hey Everyone!,

Know , Understand 

How Facebook Is 

Following  You 

Learn 

Ways To Make It Stop 

Video :  ADOBE STOCK 

Neon Facebook like numbers is counting. Social media likes increasing with shiny, glowing neon light. (

VIDEO :  ADOBE STOCK )

Neon Facebook like numbers is counting. Social media likes increasing with shiny, glowing neon light.(

VIDEO :  ADOBE STOCK )

Facebook has quietly rolled out a new feature that lets users know what data it's mining. Here's how to use it.

By now, it’s no secret that Facebook tracks your activity and mines your data to serve you targeted ads. And as executives at Facebook know, people aren’t happy about that. It could be one of the reasons the platform lost 15 million users between 2017 and 2019.

Perhaps in a move to gain back trust, Facebook recently released its Off-Facebook Activity tool. The tool is designed to give you greater control over how your personal data is shared, stored, and tracked—and not only by Facebook but also with a slew of Facebook-affiliated business partners, explains Monica Eaton-Cardone, the owner, co-founder, and COO of Chargebacks911, a fintech cybersecurity company. Here’s a breakdown of what the tool does, how to use it, and what could happen if you don’t.

What the Off-Facebook Activity tool does

“Basically, it allows you to be more protective of your personal privacy. But not completely: Facebook will still track, sort, and sell your data on a macro-level, but it will no longer be associated with your personal account,” says Eaton-Cardone.

Dave Hatter, a cybersecurity consultant at Intrust IT explains, “Unless you are already privacy-minded and have taken steps to limit your digital footprint, you might be surprised, if not shocked, at the number of sites that are sharing information about you with Facebook.” He says that a “staggering quantity of businesses, devices, apps, websites, and data services are selling your data to Facebook,” and that information is used by Facebook to serve up very targeted advertising to you. This tool should help give you back control. 

How to use it

PHOTO:  ADOBE STOCK

Shayne Sherman, CEO of TechLoris, breaks down the steps. To start, go into Settings, click “Your Facebook Information,” and then click “Off-Facebook Activity.” From there, you have a few choices. You can:

• View your connections. You can view them all or filter by category.
• Clear your current history. This will remove all interactions, so you’ll be starting from scratch. Keep in mind that this will even remove connections that you may actually want.
• Manage future connections. With this, you can block certain apps and websites from attempting to use your Facebook connection in the future.

Which should you choose? It’s really up to you. “By using the menu options, you’ll be able to delete your data, clear your history, and turn off tracking,” Eaton-Cardone explains. “You can opt out of everything, or you could disassociate yourself from specific companies or brands. The ‘Ad Preference’ setting is another option for removing undesirable content from your feed, but only the ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ tool will protect your personal data, too.” 

Should you use it?

This is really a personal choice. Not everyone will want to trade in the convenience and personalization that tracking provides. “Some people absolutely love Facebook just the way it is and really enjoy scrolling through the ads and click-bait articles that are tailored for their interests,” says Eaton-Cardone. “They adore seeing these stories and sharing them with their friends. There are also people who—even though I don’t recommend it—use their Facebook accounts to access apps, sites, and other media. If you delete your Facebook data and disable tracking, you’ll no longer see the same ads and articles in your news feed, and you’ll need to create new log-ins for all Facebook-accessed apps and sites.”

On the other hand, says Hatter, “If you choose not to take these steps, Facebook will continue to amass your information.” While Facebook currently claims that it doesn’t sell you information, he asks, will that always be true?

“Whether it ultimately matters or not, I’d always recommend getting to know your software personalization settings,” says Rhea Henry, a digital marketer and content strategist with EnergyRates.ca. “Become familiar with what’s tracking you and do what you can to maintain some semblance of privacy.”

Hope you enjoyed reading  this;)

What Do You Think?,Do let me Know or Do you agree or Disagree or Have any other ideas?Please Share your thoughts in the comments below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me!”

Bye for Know,

Sameer 

There’s more to that

If you’re looking for more,Please subscribe to my blog by clicking on Subscribe in a reader the icon or Subscribe via Email by submitting your email id on the side bar ;)

Technology,Culture,Facebook,Optimize

Like it? Share it…

Learn How To Better Your Relations With Technology

This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon.com(and affiliate Sites/Stores.)Any One Can Shop from this blog.Using links to these sites means I may earn a small percentage from  purchases made at no extra cost to you.

Hey Everyone!

Learn How To Better  

 Your Relations With

Technology 

Not a week passes without an ethical misstep by Big Tech. From Facebook’s personal data overreaches to thousands of e-commerce sites that trick people into superfluous purchases to cities implementing facial-recognition systems without consent, the tech industry continues to stress-test trust.

In response, ethical guidelines have flourished. Whether a short checklist, visual principles, or lengthy treatise, most agree on core principles of privacy, safety and security, transparency, fairness, and autonomy. But despite the efforts of think tanks, tech companies, and government agencies, the principles haven’t been so easy to put into practice.

What if we took a different approach? Rather than focusing solely on generalizable standards or a prescriptive ethical code, we could instead emphasize an ethics of care. And what requires more care than our own romantic relationships?

Our love-hate relationship with technology

You may not want to admit it, but you’re already in a relationship with your devices. If you’re like most people, your smartphone is the first thing you look at in the morning and the last thing you look at before you fall asleep. It bears witness to your private moments. It circumscribes your friendships. It collects your secrets.

When those devices have a face or a voice, our impulse is to further anthropomorphize them like our human relationships. You’ve probably posed philosophical questions to Siri or asked Alexa for an opinion on something. Maybe you’ve even narrated the thoughts of your Roomba. As our internet-enabled things learn how to read facial expressions, tune in to vocal cues, and express themselves in a way that seems empathetic, we are likely to develop an even stronger bond with them.

The problem is that it’s a one-sided relationship and we all know that never works out well. Like narcissistic manipulators, they often use their knowledge to bad ends. They take too much—time, attention, data—and give too little.

But it doesn’t have to be this way 

Relationships guide our moral compass every day. Many of us intuitively know a good relationship from a bad one. Honesty is fundamental. Consent is not just a one-time event. Boundaries are negotiated and revisited. And most of all, a good relationship is built on trust.

So what if we treated technology like a blossoming romance instead of unhealthy codependency?

Five steps to a better relationship with technology

When it comes to technology, we go from meeting to marriage—and, all too often, betrayal—in mere minutes. The relationship arc is compressed to (1) “Hello!” (2) “Tell me everything about yourself” (3) commitment for life in the same amount of time it takes to drink your first daquiri. Similar to first dates, tech platforms woo us with vibrant design and privacy pop-ups that fan into a showy display, like a Mandarin drake looking for a mate, only to later neglect us.

What if a longer relationship trajectory became the norm instead? Anthropologist Helen Fisher says that there are three stages to falling in love: lust, attraction, and attachment. But as we have existing trust issues with tech, we should take it even slower. The phases below map to Mark Knapp’s relational development model. The University of Texas professor outlined 10 steps in relationships, from hello to goodbye.

Let’s focus on the steps for coming together, and how they might apply to our tech relationships.

Phase 1: Initiating

We often get to know other people before we even meet, whether by seeing them around the neighborhood or getting a glimpse on a dating app. Likewise, we might get to know a new app through word of mouth or reviews.

This is where most tech platforms have the upper hand on the first date, though: They already know a lot about us before we even click. In addition, they ask for unrestricted access before we’ve even been properly introduced.

Imagine if a new acquaintance asked to see the contents of your backpack or a week of your browser history before engaging in even the most banal small talk. Then imagine your new acquaintance sharing that information with hundreds of other people you didn’t know without telling you. Not cool, right? But what’s what many of our tech platforms do when they ask for a blanket agreement to terms and conditions just to initiate a relationship.

A more meaningful first date would start with transparency. Just as we might say to a new acquaintance, “I heard from my neighbor that we share an interest in birdwatching. What’s the most interesting bird you’ve spotted lately?” Imagine an AI chatbot—we’ll call it Robin—that’s just as transparent, “It looks like you came here after searching for hot duck in central park on Google. Do you want to read more about it?” Starting with a bit of background data is fine, so long as we are in the loop.

(And, as for terms and conditions, it’s not an all or nothing commitment now—or ever. After all, we’ve barely just met.)

Phase 2: Experimenting

If the first phase goes well enough, the next step is to get to know each other. In personal relationships, people look for common ground, shared interests, and mutual acquaintances. In human-machine relationships, we look for authenticity.

During this stage, tech platforms can slowly build trust by assisting us with small tasks as we learn where it fits into our lives. A nudge to upload a recent photo to your bird journal might be an acceptable interaction, while incentivizing long stretches staring a device when you’re supposed to be watching birds is not.

Because this point in the relationship involves more self-disclosure, consent becomes important. Robin the chatbot might ask for permission to collect and use specific data, “Is it okay to learn about your location? This information will help alert you to the next bird sighting.” But just because consent is offered this time around, doesn’t mean it should be an ongoing and irrevocable agreement, right? Robin should also therefore perhaps add, “Let me know how long you feel comfortable sharing this information. Is one week okay to start? You can change your mind later, too.”

Most tech (or human) relationships don’t get past phase two, due lack of interest, lack of trust, or both. As long as Robin doesn’t turn out to be a milkshake duck, let’s say we decide to take it to the next level.

Phase 3: Intensifying

If we have enough in common, we look for signals that the other person wants to go further. Intensifying in human relationships means giving gifts, assigning pet names, or even requesting some level of commitment.

In the tech sphere, that might translate into a thoughtful gesture, like a recommendation that shows revealing more personal data earlier in your relationship was worth the commitment. Robin might mention in passing, with your approval, “Hey, that duck you said you liked was spotted near your current location 2 days ago!”

Often the intensifying phase also involves tests like presenting a partner to family or a brief separation to see if the mutual affection will continue—or even “triangle tests,” where one partner sees if they can get a jealous reaction from the other.

In our tech relationships, tests might work, too. Imagine a third-wheel test, where we would ask to see whether there are other hangers-on—third parties—in this relationship that are accessing your data. Perhaps you could have a transparency check-in to consider what’s being collected, saved, or shared. Or even a fairness challenge to show how decisions are being informed by other people’s data, and whether that’s representative of a diverse population.

If you can survive those steps, maybe it’s time to take the plunge.

Phase 4: Integrating

After a few months of shared experience, we begin to get in sync. Integrating is the next step in human relationships, but it’s as much about setting healthy boundaries as it is about blending lives harmoniously.

Sometimes this translates to rules. Rules that fail tend to be too vague, too absolute, or simply never discussed. The worst are manipulative, like “If you don’t agree to these terms, you can no longer chat with Robin.” Setting healthy boundaries relies on open communication. You might tell Robin, “Please don’t import my sleep app data into the app. I feel this is unnecessary and disrespectful to my bird-watching desires.”

Integrating is a tricky balance of alignment and autonomy. If we can manage to get all our ducks in a row, the next phase is bonding.

Phase 5: Bonding

At this point, the relationship is official. After we bond, that’s not the end of things though. Relationships change in all kinds of ways over time, and we need to constantly check in with our partners to make sure everyone is still happy.

Coming together and coming apart is the ebb and flow of good relationships. There are frustrations and triumphs, challenges and reconciliations, small gestures for maintenance and grand efforts at revival. Good relationships are about mutual metamorphosis.

Successful long-term relationships therefore adapt to accommodate change. Machines aren’t yet nimble enough to adapt to us over time while helping us to grow. But perhaps we can become better together.

Imagine Robin, now using your pet name Holden, noting that the ducks in Central Park will be migrating soon. “Holden, some ducks are still here you know.” You reply, “Robin, maybe it’s time for us to try something new. What about an owl prowl?”

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard believed people become their best selves through caring relationships. Following the trajectory of good relationships can provide meaningful guidelines for human-machine collaboration, too.

What humans don’t know about good relationships intuitively, they can learn. In a time when machines aren’t programmed but are taught, they can learn, too. By following these five relationship phases, the industry can begin to create a new kind of intuitive tech ethics that creates an empathetic relationship between people and technology, rather than ducking out.

Hope you enjoy reading this;)

https://amzn.to/357p5zc

“What Do You Think?Do you agree or Disagree or Have any other ideas?Please Share your thoughts in the comments below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me!”

Bye for Know,

Sameer 

There’s more to that

If you’re looking for more,Please subscribe to my blog by clicking on Subscribe in a reader the icon or Subscribe via Email by submitting your email id on the side bar ;

ai, artificial intelligence, CoDependency, facebook, ideas, Technology,Optimize

Like it? Share it…