You’ve probably experienced it: seeing an ad for a product on Facebook or Instagram minutes after talking about it in real life. Not once, not twice. How do these apps know what you converse about? Mind reading? Spying? You’re not aloAne in asking these questions. Millions of Facebook and Instagram have raised concerns about being spied on.
Free internet comes with ads- that’s just how it is. But companies that sell and buy ads are turning into stalkers. They collect data about you and your activities and use it to show you ads related to this. For example your phone’s GPS, Wi-Fi access points around you, IP addresses give the advertising companies information about the places you visit.
What do you do to limit Facebook’s access to this data? For iOS and Android devices, go to Settings > Account Settings > Location and turn off location tracking. Be sure to disable location history as well. Apart from Facebook, other apps can zero in on your location and bring you ads through Facebook. To disable this on Android devices, go to Settings > Location. Check which apps you’ve granted location access and select ‘never’ or ‘while using-not always’. For iPhone, go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services.
Another way in which Facebook is ‘spying’ on users is through their browsing history. Countless websites and apps have Facebook Pixel installed on them. This helps advertisers to view what you do when you visit a site. So after searching for sneakers online, you’ll almost immediately see an ad or two about them.
Advertisers generate ads based on user interests. You can opt out of seeing ads though. On Facebook, go to Settings > Account Settings > Ads > Ad Settings. Turn off all the settings on that page. You can go a step further and delete any interests Facebook may have gathered about you up to that point.
Since ads are developed based on interests, the posts you like and people you follow will be used to tailor ads that you see. Unfortunately there isn’t much to do about this unless you delete Instagram and Facebook.
