How Facebook Can Access Your Information For Ads

by | Jun 25, 2016 | Social Media

Last Week, Facebook released a very important update regarding your privacy settings. A lot of people may not have read it, and if you did, it certainly sounded like good news. On Facebook’s newsroom, Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s VP for their Ads and Business Platform published something entitled: Bringing People Better Ads. Sounded good right? The actual article sounded even better. Please take the time and read the full text below:

Much of the news and information we read online, along with the games, videos, and other things we enjoy, are supported by advertising. More people have access to more content than ever before – often free of charge – because the publishers and developers behind our favorite websites and apps rely on advertising to pay the bills.

However, one of the things we’ve heard from people is that many of the ads they see are annoying, distracting, or misleading. We think companies can do better, and that’s why we’ve been focused on improving ads both on and off Facebook.

For example, we introduced Facebook Audience Network two years ago to help publishers and developers support their services by showing relevant, high quality ads to people who visit their websites and apps. But in the past, we’ve only shown ads in these places to people who have Facebook accounts. Today, we’re expanding Audience Network so publishers and developers can show better ads to everyone – including those who don’t use or aren’t connected to Facebook.

We’ve all had this experience. You open a news article on your phone’s web browser and the page takes unusually long to load. Once it appears, the article is blocked by an ad. You might see a tiny “x” to hide the ad, but if you tap in the wrong spot, you get redirected to an app store or another website. It can be unclear who’s behind the ad or even if the website you’ve been directed to is safe to visit.

Advertising may be here to stay, but bad advertising like this doesn’t have to. That’s why we’re working to provide a better online advertising experience for everyone: people, publishers, and advertisers.

How We Offer Better Ads and Put People in Control

While more than a hundred companies already serve interest-based advertising on websites and apps today, we offer a better experience because we care about the integrity of Facebook ads.

Ads are reviewed against our standards and to ensure they are as respectful of people’s experience as possible. For example, we don’t permit ads that include sound unless you interact with them and we prohibit deceptive ads and ads for unsafe products and services. We’ve developed technology to determine when someone clicks on an ad on a mobile device by accident, so you don’t get taken to a website or app you didn’t mean to visit.

We also offer everyone controls over the ads they see, including tools to opt out of online interest-based advertising. If you have an account, you can do this directly from yourFacebook settings, and we honor your choice wherever you use Facebook.

Your ad preferences also help us show you better ads on and off Facebook. If you have an account, you can edit your ad preferences to tell us if you want to see ads based on specific interests, like travel or television. Starting today, you can opt out of seeing ads on apps and websites not offered by Facebook based on your ad preferences. You can do this by visiting your Facebook settings or tapping the AdChoices icon next to an Audience Network ad.

Together, we hope these efforts will help improve the online advertising experience for everyone. You can learn more about Facebook ads in a new section of Privacy Basics as well as in our updated Cookies Policy.

Alright, Facebook is giving us better ads!

But how exactly do they do that? Well, what they’re basically saying is, we’re giving advertisers more of your information, and unless you opt out of this, we’re free to do so. It’s like those annoying auto charges that milk you for cash unless you tell them to stop charging you, even if you haven’t been using their service or products for months.

As a social media marketer, I think this is great news. However, as a social media user, it’s also a bit concerning. So if you’re the type who value your privacy, you have to read those updates. You may say, but all they do is link to your facebook settings, and I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to check or change. Well, lucky for you, several social media and tech mags are showing the specific changes Facebook has made and a step by step guide on how to protect your information. This one is by Social Media Today is a personal favorite. Check that out. If you do, pay special attention to the apps that are tracking you on facebook. These include games and quizzes that you never thought would and could access your information. I had over 200 of them!

If you want to be entertained while sorting through hundreds of apps on your profile, you can also watch our latest Facebook Live, CoffeeBreak with CoffeeBot where we discussed more of how Facebook uses your information and actions for ads.

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