#AdTech#Privacy#Cookies#AdTargeting#DataProtection: "In a little-noticed change at the end of last year, thousands of websites started being more transparent about how many companies your data is being shared with. In November, those infuriating cookie pop-ups—which ask your permission to collect and share data—began sharing how many advertising “partners” each website is working with, giving a further glimpse of the sprawling advertising ecosystem. For many sites, it’s not pretty.
A WIRED analysis of the top 10,000 most popular websites shows that dozens of sites say they are sharing data with more than 1,000 companies, while thousands of other websites are sharing data with hundreds of firms. Quiz and puzzle website JetPunk tops the pile, listing 1,809 “partners” that may collect personal information, including “browsing behavior or unique IDs.”" https://www.wired.com/story/cookie-pop-up-ad-tech-partner-top-websites/
Researchers found that, on average, Facebook received data from 2,230 different companies for each of the 709 volunteers. One extreme example showed that “nearly 48,000 different companies were found in the data of a single volunteer.” In total, Facebook data archives showed that 186,892 companies had provided data on all of the study’s participants.
Volunteers recruited with help from The Markup pulled their personal data from Facebook using its Download Your Information tool and shared it with the researchers.
Companies using Meta’s advertising platform upload customers’ personal information and buying habits, which Meta uses to serve targeted ads to those people or people with similar profiles. The researchers believed that the ease of “microtargeting” campaigns to specific user data accounted for the fact that 96,000 of the companies listed were only targeting one of the volunteers."
#SocialMedia#Facebook#Surveillance#AdTargeting: "By now most internet users know their online activity is constantly tracked. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of “partners.”
But what is the scale of this surveillance? Judging from data collected by Facebook and newly described in a unique study by non-profit consumer watchdog Consumer Reports, it’s massive, and examining the data may leave you with more questions than answers.
Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. On average, each participant in the study had their data sent to Facebook by 2,230 companies. That number varied significantly, with some panelists’ data listing over 7,000 companies providing their data.
The Markup helped Consumer Reports recruit participants for the study. Participants downloaded an archive of the last three years of their data from their Facebook settings, then provided it to Consumer Reports."
#AdTargeting#Privacy#DataProtection#DataBrokers#Surveillance: "If advertisers want to reach older people, they should place their copy next to the type of content that demographic usually consumes, in the places older people frequent or based on the topics they are supposedly interested in, rather than assuming the right to identify them personally based on what they do in their private lives. Trading in such data, whether by offering or acquiring it, must be banned, and the managers of companies that do so should face criminal liability.
There is no other way. There can be no half measures. How on earth did we reach the point where a third party — or a government — can can buy information about where I go and what I do by tracking my telephone?
In short, there is no such thing as “good” or “acceptable” personal data trafficking; it is always a violation of one of our most basic human rights. It is essential to safeguard that right, even if it means economic ruin for a few giant corporations. Advertising must be put back in its place, and surveillance capitalism brought under control."
#EU#SocialMedia#Twitter#X#AdTargeting#MicroTargeting: "Today, noyb filed a complaint against X (Twitter) for unlawfully using the political views and religious beliefs of its users for targeted advertising. The company used this specially protected data to determine whether people should or should not see an ad campaign by the EU Commission’s Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs, which tried to ralley support for the proposed “chat control” in the Netherlands. In November, this unlawful use of micro-targeting already prompted noyb to file a complaint against the EU Commission itself. Now, noyb follows up with a complaint against X. By enabling this practice in the first place, the company violated both the GDPR and the DSA."
#SocialMedia#EU#Meta#Facebook#Instagram#AdTargeting#DataProtection#Privacy: "The obvious difference is that Meta isn’t a struggling news outlet, but a multi-billion dollar company funded by the invasion of user privacy. But not only that. Charging up to €19 a month is outrageously disproportionate, especially when the company’s average revenue per user was reportedly €5.50 per month in the EU in the fourth quarter of 2022.
It is now up to Europe’s privacy and data protection regulators to make sure that Meta actually complies with the law. In reality, there shouldn’t be too much leeway. The European Data Protection Board has stated in its guidelines 05/2020 that consent is not free if there’s a significant additional cost to withholding it. In addition, the authority states that access to services should not be made conditional on ‘the consent of a user to the storing of information, or gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a user.’
It remains to be seen whether Meta’s regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), will allow the company to bypass the consent requirements of EU privacy law. Even if the paid subscription should become reality, it would be on shaky ground. noyb already announced that it would fight this up and down the courts."
#EU#Meta#Facebook#Subscriptions#AdTargeting#DataProtection#PayForYourRights#Privacy: "For its approach, Meta appears to rely on six words in an 18.548 word judgement from earlier this year, which found that Meta's approach to the GDPR since 2018 was illegal. While the judgement consistently found that all of Meta's current approaches to having a "legal basis" for processing under Article 6 of the GDPR were illegal, a small sentence was slipped into the ruling at paragraph 150, which said that there must be an alternative to ads "if necessary for an appropriate fee". It seems that Meta is now relying on these six words of the judgement to introduce a fee of € 160 per year if users do not want to consent to the exploitation of their personal data. These six words are a so-called "obiter dictum", an additional consideration by a court that is not directly related to the case and is typically not binding. In general, only the "holding" of CJEU rulings are binding. It is therefore not clear if the CJEU will stick with these six words when Meta's new approach reaches the CJEU.
Max Schrems: "The CJEU said that the alternative to ads must be 'necessary' and the fee must be 'appropriate'. I don't think € 160 a year is what they had in mind. These six words are also an 'obiter dictum', a non-binding element that went beyond the core case before the CJEU. For Meta this is not the most stable case law and we will clearly fight against such an approach.""
#EU#DataBrokers#AdTargeting#TargetedAdvertising#DataProtection#Surveillance: "Now, for the first time, we present a detailed data analysis for the entire European Union. The research shows how closely data traffickers are tracking people in Europe. Over several weeks, we further analyzed hundreds of thousands of segments. We found tens of thousands of segments on the characteristics and behavior of EU citizens, and we have reduced them to particularly delicate cases. What remained were 1,900 segments that we consider to be extremely questionable.
They can all be assigned with a high degree of probability to one of 15 EU countries on the basis of their name, and they all relate to personal characteristics such as health, religion and political views. They deal, for example, with whether someone is easy to manipulate and has a lot or little money. The research makes it clear for the first time how thoroughly the advertising industry screens people on this continent.
Experts in the fields of data protection and civil rights describe the findings as „very explosive.“ Vienna-based researcher and activist Wolfie Christl writes: „It’s a scandal that this uncontrolled trade in digital profiles about personal characteristics and behaviors is still happening in Europe.“ He had discovered the Xandr document on the net and brought it to our attention."
The #advertising engines think I am am planning on packing heat onto airplanes (or, maybe, planes and trains) today. LOL (For the record, I am not). #AdTargeting
#EU#AdTech#AdTargeting#Surveillance#SurveillanceCapitalism: "Everything we do on the Internet is being recorded and analyzed in order to achieve one goal: to show us targeted advertising. This is a reality to which many people have become accustomed in exchange for free services. However, very few people understand exactly where our data ends up when we visit websites, use apps or make digital payments. Targeted advertising moves in mysterious ways. That’s another fact we’ve become accustomed to.
An investigation by netzpolitik.org is set to change this fundamental imbalance between the adtech industry and internet users. In June, we published a series of articles shining a light on the collection, trade and use of personal data in the global adtech industry. We analyzed an inventory file from a US-based data marketplace called Xandr. The file contains more than 650,000 so-called audience segments. These are used by advertising companies to categorize and target billions of people.
The scope and detail of this data collection is staggering. There is hardly a human characteristic that advertisers do not want to exploit for their purposes. Want to reach people in Denmark who have bought a Toyota? No problem. Italians with financial problems? No problem. Minors in Austria? Hardcore Christians in Portugal? Pregnant women in Poland? Fragile seniors in France? Queers in Spain? No problem."
#Privacy#LocationTracking#Surveilance#DataProtection#AdTargeting: "Our personnal data must not be up for grabs in such unscrutinised way. In such an enormous and never-resting data ecosystem, even app developers have come out claiming they were not aware of who their users location data ends up with. It is time this data (ab)use stops. We must take a stand and demand control over our personal data. If you feel urged to act on this, we suggest you a look at PI's guides on how to protect yourself from online tracking."
NefariousSocial wishes all of its current and future clients* a happy Pride Month full of lucrative advertising campaigns exploiting the struggles of marginalized peoples for profit.