Buried in the labyrinth of the Facebook lexicon is a switch you can throw that says “enable interest based ads”. Those type of ads are customized based on predictions about your interests… interests gleaned from your online activity such as the use of other apps, for example. How? By signing in to an app using your FB profile you allow FB to receive info about your use of that app. Multiply that by 20 apps and you get the picture. But if not, I’ll paint one:
Imagine that down the block across the street from your house is a black van. Inside sits Marky Z smoking cigarettes and drinking bad coffee. He’s got a pair of headphones on and is listening intently as a reel to reel spins slowly in the background, recording your daily routine. On an empty pizza box he feverishly scribbles notes while his lips curl. He’s getting lots of good stuff. He wipes sweat off of his brow. More notes are scribbled. His heart rate increases and his pupils dilate.
But have no fear! As of Feb 1, 2017 the Digital Advertising Alliance began “enforcing it’s guidance on the application on the DAA principles of transparency and control to data used across devices”. The DAA cross device guidelines will “help companies consistently apply the DAA hallmarks of consumer transparency and control across our rapidly expanding multi-device, multi-browser world”.
Enforce Guidelines? You can spit in the face of a guideline and nobody can do a thing about it. Hallmarks? Please. Nobody even knows what the DAA is, never mind their hallmarks.
Anyway, all that nonsense is but an admission that as you build your digital house, more windows become available for faceless seedy eyes to peer through and more places become available to hide bugs planted by the man in the van.
