Turning Off Facebook Location Tracking Doesn't Stop It From Tracking Your Location (gizmodo.com) 165
Even if you explicitly tell Facebook to not track your location, it says it will still use your IP address to track your location. Kashmir Hill, reporting for Gizmodo: Aleksandra Korolova has turned off Facebook's access to her location in every way that she can. She has turned off location history in the Facebook app and told her iPhone that she "Never" wants the app to get her location. She doesn't "check-in" to places and doesn't list her current city on her profile.
Despite all this, she constantly sees location-based ads on Facebook. She sees ads targeted at "people who live near Santa Monica" (where she lives) and at "people who live or were recently near Los Angeles" (where she works as an assistant professor at the University of Southern California). When she traveled to Glacier National Park, she saw an ad for activities in Montana, and when she went on a work trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, she saw an ad for a ceramics school there. Facebook was continuing to track Korolova's location for ads despite her signaling in all the ways that she could that she didn't want Facebook doing that.
[...] "There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely," said a Facebook spokesperson by email. "We use city and zip level location which we collect from IP addresses and other information such as check-ins and current city from your profile to ensure we are providing people with a good service -- from ensuring they see Facebook in the right language, to making sure that they are shown nearby events and ads for businesses that are local to them."
Despite all this, she constantly sees location-based ads on Facebook. She sees ads targeted at "people who live near Santa Monica" (where she lives) and at "people who live or were recently near Los Angeles" (where she works as an assistant professor at the University of Southern California). When she traveled to Glacier National Park, she saw an ad for activities in Montana, and when she went on a work trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, she saw an ad for a ceramics school there. Facebook was continuing to track Korolova's location for ads despite her signaling in all the ways that she could that she didn't want Facebook doing that.
[...] "There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely," said a Facebook spokesperson by email. "We use city and zip level location which we collect from IP addresses and other information such as check-ins and current city from your profile to ensure we are providing people with a good service -- from ensuring they see Facebook in the right language, to making sure that they are shown nearby events and ads for businesses that are local to them."
Not really (Score:1)
There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely [unless you spoof your IP address via a mixer network such as Tor].
each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:5, Insightful)
The obvious only response to "There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads" is DON'T USE FACEBOOK.
The only useful purpose Facebook serves is a list for the great telephone sanitizer purge.
Re:each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much this... I managed to prevent FB from knowing where I am by removing (and previously disabling) the stupid app off the phone.
If I actually needed to be in Facebook, I'd just use the mobile browser and kill that tab before I closed it.
Re: (Score:2)
They still track you via the websites you visit with "like" buttons.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why I have a separate browser just for facebook for the few times I use it...
Some people I know use firefox multi-account containers to separate the browsing together with multiple ad/script-block plugins.
Re: (Score:1)
nope. it's them little facebook thumbs on 3rd party pages tracking you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
All I have to do is connect my tablet to a wi-fi node, and Google knows my location within 50-100 feet. This even though location services and GPS are turned off. While Google is updating their maps, they are also collecting data on all of the wi-fi nodes that they detect, coupled with GPS location data. So when you connect to any wi-fi node, they know where you are by what wi-fi nodes that your phone or tablet can see.
I almost never use my tablet, and a big part of that is that Google (and many apps) t
Re: each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)ll bite: why would Google know the SSID of your WLAN, unless you are using Android?
Re: each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:3)
Re: each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:4, Insightful)
Putting ads on billboards, or tv networks may be annoying, but targeted ads are:
* collecting information about me against my will, even when I use numerous methods to try to block them
* using that information to attempt to manipulate my behavior
Good and evil are relative terms, but I consider the majority of the industry to be outright "evil".
Re: each new revelation is increasingly depraved (Score:1)
We were told years ago to not use Facebook. (Score:1)
Typically reiterating the Free Software Foundation [fsf.org] (from 2010) or Richard Stallman's sentiments [stallman.org] (dating back to 2011 and revised as news is published) doesn't go over well on corporate media tech sites. And then bad things happen and people eventually come around to realizing that the more principled approach (and attendant conclusions) was foreseen years ago.
Re: Not really (Score:1, Troll)
Really, rape? (Score:3, Insightful)
One day, with a lot of luck, you will have a partner who can help explain to you the difference between trivia ( oh no, google thinks it knows where I am ) and a sadistic assault.
Re: (Score:1)
In this case, one can lead to the other. It is stalking. And you don't even need to use facebook. They get the info from Google
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
If FB goes by IP address, that is all well and good. Best defense there is a VPN. This is what I use to deter location based ad slinging, and it seems to be effective, as FB can only get back the VPN's IP range.
Re: (Score:2)
Which does not stop you from gettings ads, you just get ads for the wrong location.
Re: (Score:3)
Which does not stop you from gettings ads, you just get ads for the wrong location.
That's fine, I find that funny, and it is satisfying to know that the admen are wasting effort on me and that their data well is poisoned. Almost as good as getting a live sales phonecall - my pretending I'm interested then leaving the handset on the table squawking away for the next 5 minutes to no-one.
For some reason ads on the web have got the idea that I live in Uxbridge, a suburb of London 200 miles from me, and that I need laser surgery on my eyes. That's just funny, not that I see ads very often any
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook has a fully functional .onion address.
We don't know everything Facebook is doing. (Score:5, Interesting)
As is explained in the documentary, people are accepting social media as news. But social media has no editor, in many cases. So, often people, especially those with little education, are accepting fake news stories on social media as true.
Problem: Most Slashdot readers are more logical than the average person in the world. Slashdot readers are much more likely to have developed methods of avoiding fake or unreliable news. But, apparently Slashdot readers are unlikely to realize how often it is that other people are not logical.
Social media managers, especially the Facebook managers interviewed for that Frontline documentary, say they have no responsibility.
"News" without an editor is a social problem that existed far less before the Internet became available because it was too expensive to distribute fake news.
Facebook abuse: Look at the 2nd part of the documentary starting at 43:11. Zeynep Tufekci of UNC Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina), Associate Professor, UNC School of Information and Library Science; Adjunct Professor, Department of Sociology [unc.edu] says this about deaths as a result of people accepting a Facebook post as news:
"years and years of people begging the company [Facebook]
She indicates that Facebook cannot be trusted.
Re: (Score:1)
That's not the issue here. The real issue is people believing their own bias and prejudice to be true instead of the facts of the issue. They do this because it makes everything simpler to understand. (I.e. It's much easier, and computationally cheaper, to create a new row of data in an existing table than to store an entirely new column's worth of data
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"News" without an editor is a social problem that existed far less before the Internet became available because it was too expensive to distribute fake news.
The laughter that you're hearing is Dan Rather...
Re: (Score:1)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/walt-mossberg-quit-facebook.html
You could try not using it as much (Score:1)
Re:You could try not using it as much (Score:5, Informative)
Apps that aren't installed have an even harder time tracking you.
Re: (Score:1)
You hardly need to download anything to be tracked. The phone does it on its own. You cannot turn off location tracking without turning off your phone and removing the battery.
Re: (Score:2)
Apps that aren't installed have an even harder time tracking you.
Good luck finding a smartphone that doesn't have facebook pre-installed in a way that prevents uninstallation. You can of course choose to not use it (and even go so far as to never sign in to it) but finding one that doesn't have it is nearly impossible.
Re: (Score:3)
Have you tried an iPhone; they are quite popular; and quite free of facebook OOB.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apps that aren't installed have an even harder time tracking you.
Good luck finding a smartphone that doesn't have facebook pre-installed in a way that prevents uninstallation. You can of course choose to not use it (and even go so far as to never sign in to it) but finding one that doesn't have it is nearly impossible.
My Kyocera Hydro VIBE [kyoceramobile.com] didn't come with the Facebook app.
I'm sure there are many second-tier phones (ie: not iPhone or Galaxy, etc...) w/o Facebook pre-installed.
Re: (Score:2)
My cheap Moto E didn't and doesn't have Facebook on it. The only extras were a file manager, FM radio app and a lost device locator app, none of which run in the background, well the FM radio can.
It does have too much Google crap on it though.
preinstalled, not (Score:3)
My Windows phone (Nokia Lumia 950) doesn't have an FB app, and never did.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck finding a smartphone that doesn't have facebook pre-installed in a way that prevents uninstallation. You can of course choose to not use it (and even go so far as to never sign in to it) but finding one that doesn't have it is nearly impossible.
Easy, and wrong, respectively. Also, irrelevant. You can disable apps so they don't function. But also, it's trivial to find such a phone. Just buy one that hasn't been raped by a carrier. They don't have any non-removable bundled apps. Also, it's irrelevant because you're already a fool if you buy a phone whose bootloader you can't unlock, so that you can replace the OS install entirely. If you can't be arsed to do the research ahead of time, you'll get what you deserve.
Re:You could try not using it as much (Score:4, Interesting)
There are only a handful of geolocation and demographic database providers and all of them have numerous data feeds. A rough rule of thumb is that if you are using any free digital based service (Air Miles, store loyalty cards, branded credit cards etc) then these companies know who you are and a scary amount about your shopping habits and normal movement patterns.
As in the world of counter-inelligence, the problem isn't the spy. It is the intelligence agency that employs the spy. It's just that the spy happens to be one thing you might catch and defeat. Good counter-inel isn't just making sure you have no spies in your camp. It is also things like making sure none of your people leave useful information left laying around and carefully feeding false information to the other side. Thing is, that is very hard to do even for very good intelligence agencies. It is hopeless to think of the general mass of humanity (most of whom don't care) achieving the same level of vigilance.
Re:You could try not using it as much (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the benign possibility is that the app has some kind of monitor process that phones home occasionally to check for updates. (home being defined as either the app store or the developers own systems) But making that background process also track your location and report that in any of several ways should be trivial for any app developer skilled enough to meet the inclusion criteria of the Android or Apple app stores.
For companies like Facebook and pretty much every free mobile game out there, their entire business model is providing you with a service only as an opportunity to gather every possible scrap of data on you. Just because your phone isn't passing along what it knows about your location doesn't mean that the background app can't determine where you are through a number of other methods. It just means the level of certainty drops a tiny bit.
For example, you go to your favourite caffeine dispensary where they also happen to have free Wi-Fi. You happen to have $shiny_app installed but don't allow it to know your location. But it can still get identifying data for radio sources through the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and possibly the NFC reader (aka S Beam in Samsung phones, many other phones have something similar). The background process I described already gathers that info and then phones home with that radio finger print. The $shiny_app developer has a data base, purchased from a 3rd party, which lists millions of such fingerprints. Thanks to numerous other mobile users who haven't disabled location data on their devices, the database has a pretty clear idea of where each radio fingerprint is physically located.
It's important to note that deleting an offending app won't solve the problem. MOST of the apps you have installed will be doing this and there are only a handful of providers of that third party geolocation database. Thus the 3rd party database company has dozens, even hundreds of informants at any given time, compiling really massive amounts of data. To me, it is those 3rd party database providers that are the real and pernicious privacy threat.
As far as I know, these data analytic companies collect FAR more than just geolocation data. Many of them also cooperate with programs like Air Miles, store loyalty cards and so on. Which means that not only do they know where you are pretty much in real time, there's a good chance they know your name, credit score, banking information, shopping habits and place of employment. And while there is a tiny minority of people who actually worry about protecting their privacy from these apps (like a majority of slashdotters), very few seem to be taking a step back and worrying about the big picture.
What we need is a way to make protecting privacy more profitable than violating it but I'm certainly not the genius who will come up with one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Apps that aren't running have a real hard time tracking where you are.
No they don't. Not if by "running" you mean having some kind of user-facing UI. Apps run services in the background all the time and yes, they collect information about where you are.
The line between app and malware is shockingly blurry, since app vendors fell free to collect, transmit and share data about you without your awareness.
Re: You could try not using it as much (Score:2)
"The line between app and malware is shockingly blurry"
By the standards of early 2000s, when I had my first job in network security, every app on my Android phone - as well as the OS itself - is malware.
Re: (Score:2)
That's great (assuming you actually want to use facebook for some reason); but it does nothing to hide your location or ip address from them.
Re: (Score:2)
Cancel your account. Or did you expect to get things for free.
That's a great step to take, but Facebook is tracking your location even if you don't have a Facebook account. Facebook knows who you are, where you live, and quite possibly how much money is in your checking account (revealed earlier in the year they had deals with several banks), even if you don't have a Facebook account.
Re: So (Score:2)
Or better, send your congressman a suitcase full of cash and ask him to please ban Faceboot's cyberstalking-based business model. (You can also write to your congressman without sending a suitcase full of cash, but don't expect him to give a fuck what you say.)
Opt Out (Score:1)
[quote]
"There is no way for people to opt out of using location for ads entirely," said a Facebook spokesperson by email.
[/quote]
There most certainly *IS* a way to opt out. UNINSTALL THE DAMN APP!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Try "Package Disabler Pro". It only works on Samsung devices, but it will disable bloatware packages, without needing root.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll sell you my Windows phone. Cracked screen, but otherwise good. So long as you don't want a bunch of games, etc. ... and you don't want FB.
Re: (Score:2)
have you tried via the debug bridge?
Well so what? (Score:2)
IF you are tracking my I-phone by it's IP, I spend a lot of time in downtown Dallas.. If you track my Facebook access from home, it's going to tell you I'm in the Carrolton Texas area. Both are about 25 miles from my ACTUAL location.
However, there are more ways to give up your physical location than accessing Facebook. Take a picture and share it with your mobile device? (They are usually GEO tagged by your device). Run some "GPS" application to get driving directions? Actually have it turned on and pi
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
AFAIK, it's never been done... but if you had low-level programming access to the radio in an 802.11ac chipset (enough to detect TDWR radar bursts as they sweep by) and a source of extremely accurate timestamps, you could probably combine that with tower data and external data-aggregators (who, among other things, would have to monitor the radar beam's sweep) and obtain EXTREMELY accurate location data, even without involving GPS or wi-fi at all, and even if you were in an area that had access to only a sin
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
2. Same thing, BF is tracked being near your car.
3. Would track me at work, doing umm, work?
4. I know of a few shady places in town where I might pick up some drugs, not so sure I would want to hang out there otherwise.
5. I've had postings too, usually along the lines of "hey, that was you, small world".
6. My So would be disappointed to learn that I stop at the occasional grocery store, hardware store, auto parts store on
You haven't removed the Facebook app? (Score:1)
Really. After Cambridge Analytica. After the call log confessions. You still let Facebook on your phone ... and you're concerned about IP tracking? Seriously people.
Re:You deserve what you get... (Score:4, Insightful)
...if you are using Facebook
LOL.. I get what I expect... But I use Facebook sparingly and don't freely share many accurate details of my personal life, mainly because I understand the risks of doing this. But then again, I'm not some naive youngster who was raised with a need for a social network online as I know how to talk to people face to face.
Read the EULIA and Terms of Service people... Think seriously about what they are saying they CAN do with any information they scrape up from you. Then remember that once they have the data, you cannot get it back or guarantee it's erased, regardless of what they promise.
Of course you can stop FB location tracking... (Score:1)
Come on, people. The solution doesn't involve rocket science or new laws. If their ads bother you, just stop using Facebook on your phone. You can use FB Purity to avoid seeing the ads but you'll still be tracked. So just remove the damned application from your phone.
VPN? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:VPN? (Score:5, Interesting)
None of that can be completely disabled. This information then gets shared with a handful of OEM apps and the application stores. On the back end, there are a handful of demographic and geolocation data base providers collating, cross referencing and compiling all the data from a myriad sources. Some of those sources include data like name, address and phone numbers. (shopper loyalty cards, Air Miles, store specific free draws etc)
Having Facebook know where you are at all times and showing you ads based on what they know about you is scary enough. But it gets worse when you realize that Facebook is tracking you and adding you to the databases they use even if you've never been a Facebook user. The real worst though is that these backend databases aren't really subject to any oversight and are accessible to any one willing to sign a contract with the analytics company. From time to time and in various places, laws have been passed that say marketers cannot collect certain kinds of information in certain ways or do certain things with that information. But it is rare for a law to take a holistic approach, starting with privacy and working from there. And I've NEVER heard of a law that banned certain data practices and required that all existing data gathered that way be purged
Re: (Score:2)
Surely not using the app but accessing Facebook through a browser and VPN will give you at least some level of concealment of your movements? I'm not a Facebook user but I do most of my browsing (desktop and mobile) using ProtonVPN always through the same server, so to anyone who wants to track me that way it looks as though I'm always in the same city.
I'm ok with IP based tracking (Score:2)
I'm ok with IP based tracking, my IP stays static anywhere in my local metro are, so all they know is what city I'm in (and often that's not even accurate for small towns).
If I really want to hide it, I can use a VPN.
What I don't like is the GPS or Wifi SSID tracking which is much more granular and harder to mask. I almost never give apps that permission. I once tried a free flashlight app that wanted location permission and ability to read my contacts, I've been very selective about what apps I install aft
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A VPN only masks your IP from the destination web site and the routers your packets pass through. Your phone always knows where you are and shares that info with your carrier, OEM and application store, just for starters.
Yes, I know, that's why I'm ok with IP based tracking, but not GPS or Wifi SSID tracking, and I'm very selective over what apps have location access -- I know Google and my carrier know my location, but that's unavoidable, I'm not so principled that I'd give up a smartphone entirely.
Duh (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is it really so hard? (Score:5, Informative)
Facebook is well known for tracking you even if you don't have a Facebook account. Those little 'f' icons you see on websites? They're not an icon; they contain a script which gathers info to uniquely identify your browser, then reports which page you visited back to the mothership. They create a ghost profile for you, then link it to your real identity if they ever get corroborating evidence (e.g. friend sends you a link to their FB page to your email, thus linking your email address with the ghost profile). And if your friend has tagged pictures they took of you, they know what you look like. And now with their app reporting your movements, they know where you live and work and like to hang out. All without you ever creating a Facebook account. I'm approaching the opinion that the only way to deal with them is to nuke them from orbit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Is it really so hard? (Score:3)
"contact Google"
Wouldn't shaking my fist and shouting at the sky have greater likelihood of being effective?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rooting does not void the warranty, and the Carrier is a liar is they say it does.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Is it really so hard? (Score:2)
Yup. Who can stop Faceboot? The Air Force, that's who!
By all means (Score:1)
They take privacy, seriously.
Language and location (Score:2)
> "ensuring they see Facebook in the right language"
That has nothing to do with location and everything to do with the user. Just because I might be in Frankfurt doesn't mean I want to see content in German.
Can it get much worse? (Score:2)
umm..."There is no way for people to opt out"? (Score:1)
Stop letting them sell your life as their product.
Not a big problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How to know which VPNs are trustable and not just a honey pot for some unscrupulous operator that sells your info anyway?
remember when (Score:1)
The more we learn about Facebook... (Score:2)
What do you mean by tracking? (Score:2)
The vendor accumulating GPS location datapoints in order to do something, that's "tracking" and should be able to be circumvented. If the vendor notices the IP you're at to provide more localized service and then immediately forgets where you are, I wouldn't call that "tracking" - not to mention that IP addresses are not particularly good location correlates.
I know it's fun to bash Facebook, but if this assistant professor is so paranoid, why is she on Facebook at all? This article is nothing but troll bait
Non-consensual tracking (Score:3)
Phrasing (Score:2)
So people tell FB their name and address (Score:3)
...and then complain that they know where they live?
Re: (Score:1)
My name is my personal information and I do not want anyone else knowing it!
The ads have to ad (Score:4, Informative)
A setting on some "GUI" will not change the ads.
The users are the product and cant escape with a setting in a GUI.
web bugs still work? (Score:2)
Who would have thought that web servers hosting text and images would *gasp* get your IP address...
It's not like we have any geo location technology to find out location by IP or anything, especially here in the US.
Don't track doesn't mean has *never* tracked (Score:2)
"Facebook in the right language" (Score:2)
"... we collect from IP addresses... to ensure we are providing people with a good service -- [like] ensuring they see Facebook in the right language"
Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Because I should always be served ads in whatever language I'm geographically surrounded by, rather than the language I speak natively and could easily specify via preference. I *totally* buy it.
Simple fix (Score:2)
Use a VPN and connect to a server in another State (or even another country). You should be using a VPN anyway just to be on the safe side.
Right language my ass (Score:2)
Not just Facebook! (Score:2)
Many companies do this too. :(
Re: (Score:2)
There's a Fix (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If you are technical, you can build a VM, use Chrome Remote Desktop to remote in from anywhere you are to that VM, and have Facebook goodness anywhere. Plus, if Facebook compromises the VM via malvertising or some other means, a restore from a snapshot is a click away.