A few days back, I was discussing about a very popular web series with my friend that we can possibly binge watch. Amidst this discussion, I went to check my Facebook news feed and yowza! The same ad popped up in my news feed. Sounds familiar, isn’t it? I am quite sure you have been experiencing this for long and sometimes they are eerie, at times they are creepy. But hold on! Because that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Facebook has moved a step ahead and has taken the creepiness to the next level. They have introduced a feature called Facebook Off Activity to its billions of customers worldwide. It’s a cool feature that according to them, allows you to take control of your data. Let me explain to you how. This feature collects data from its partner third party apps. Now, say for example you are using Truecaller on your phone, it will be sending data to Facebook or say you bought something across these eCommerce stores, they send that data to Facebook and it will store that information against your profile. If you haven’t seen the feature yet, look at the step by step guidelines below to check the feature.
Post Cambridge Analytica incident, the entire tech space has been overly critical about how the data is being used (or misused) by these apps that are part and parcel of our lives. Facebook also has revised data policy and to ensure that its users have control of where their data is being fetched on to the app, they have launched this Facebook Off Activity feature. You can choose to go ahead with it or simply cancel it. The power is in your hands. This feature is helping Facebook to customize and target appropriate ads to its users by mining behavioral data.
While this seems to be a cool feature in the first place, it’s scary at the other end of the spectrum too. Do you remember at the beginning I told you about the ads that popped up across news feed? Well, they are going to be more customized and more direct towards you, they are going to make things more difficult now. Imagine a situation. You are watching your favorite shows over Netflix or you are scrolling through answers across Quora. Facebook knows that you are doing it. It's like your parents monitoring your search history and online activities only to ridicule you later. This situation will freak you out even more if you are doing some transactions, buying some products to even trying to find your loved ones across some dating apps. Also, this feature is only on Facebook while nothing has been said about the other two main pillars of the social media ecosystem i.e. WhatsApp and Instagram. If your account is linked then there are possible chances of data breach and security threat.
Now you may argue that what if we turn off that feature? Well, that should be the most desired action from the privacy point of view. This necessarily implies that Facebook won’t know which websites you have been browsing and you won’t be getting any targeted ads. Fair enough.
However, Washington Post pointed out that the data is not deleted rather just anonymity is maintained. So, the fundamental concerns of data threat, leakage, privacy that people over the years have been raising eyebrows upon are still there. Overall it seems to be a good move by Facebook, but the concerns and possibilities are there. And if you are unaware, let me tell you even if you are out of the Facebook window, you aren’t out of its sight.
So, ladies and gentlemen, next time some creepy stalker pops your chatbox, you know that app itself is checking your every possible move and you have been a part of a much creepier superset. Things got worse, isn’t it?
Just stay safe stay protected. Bella Ciao…
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