Facebook Will Track What Physical Stores You Go Into (popsci.com) 306
Facebook will soon roll out a feature that will allow advertisers to see which brick and mortar stores you've physically walked into. These details are collected from anyone who has the location services feature turned on, Facebook says. The will allow advertisers to see in real time which Facebook ads are turning into actual sales. Popular Science reports: Using the location services on your phone, Facebook will keep a tally of who goes to what stores, and show the anonymized numbers to advertisers, as evidence that buying ads on Facebook is getting people to visit brick-and-mortar businesses. It's a great thing for Facebook, which will now have excellent data to prove (or disprove) on a user-to-user basis what a store is getting for its advertising dollar. But it's a pretty frightening idea that a company will have information not unlike your credit card statement all from location services data.
Yep, you volunteered for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out all you needed to do to get people to voluntarily wear a GPS tracker is tell them it makes talking to their friends easier.
Or make it critical for social networking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from a few Sheldon Coopers out there who would be shut-ins without social media, most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.
This is it for me and the FB mobile app, I have just deleted it and will not be reinstalling it.
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:4, Interesting)
[...] most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.
This begs the question... How many store-branded reward cards do you have in your wallet?
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Not a single one.
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I don't know who they are tracking when I use them though. It isn't me.
Since you're using the card, they're tracking you via your purchases and building a profile based on that. If you paid by debit or credit card, they might have that info associated with your profile and acquired your personal info through a third-party vendor. Like it or not, they're tracking you.
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Since you're using the card, they're tracking you via your purchases and building a profile based on that. If you paid by debit or credit card, they might have that info associated with your profile and acquired your personal info through a third-party vendor. Like it or not, they're tracking you.
I don't care because they save me money. A large store in the U.S. Midwest offers sales only to loyalty card holders. Sure, they have "regular" sale prices that apply to every customer. But they also have sales and specials that only apply to loyalty card holders. For example, save $10 if you spend $75 in the shoe department over a 4-week period. Or save $9 if you spend $400 over a 4-week period. And of course, regular sales of $.50 off this or $1 off that.
I don't care that they know how often I buy Bra
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The trick here is to get a 'loyalty card' and not fill in the info. I don't have a facebook account or any social media junk except google+ and LinkedIn.
And where I feel it necessary I pay cash or use a greendot money card.
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the point of loyalty cards is to get me to consolidate all my buying with that retailer instead of with a variety of retailers.
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When someone else posts a photo with you in it and they tell Facebook who it is, it goes against your profile that you never created.
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Or just, you know, turn off location services
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Why should Facebook make me disable services which are actually useful to stop them from tracking my physical movements?
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If you're running Android v6 you can disable location services for just the Facebook app.
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Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Interesting)
The concept of disabling location tracking or possibly just leaving your phone at home probably doesn't enter into the conversation, does it?
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The concept of disabling location tracking or possibly just leaving your phone at home probably doesn't enter into the conversation, does it?
Leaving phone at home? Doesn't that make a MOBILE phone just a regular phone?
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Most people keep their phones on them at all times, because it's just too useful, so no, that's not really an option.
Disabling location tracking? If you're using an Apple iDevice, then yes, this is possible. If you are using an Android, then no, it's not possible, because Google has specifically and conspicuously not granted users fine-grained controls over what an application is allowed to do.
This is apparently changing in the most recent versions of android, but considering how poor the penetration is f
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This is true, to a degree. I do not think [slashdot.org] that it is completely valid, though. If you turn off WiFi as well as disabling location access, maybe you can avoid tracking. If you leave WiFi on, though, all the store needs to do is establish a WiFi access point with a unique SSID provided to (or by) Facebook. The app can sniff for connections and put you at the scene.
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I don't understand why anyone would install an FB mobile app in the first place, their web site works fine on a phone. FB Messenger? That's just teenage stupidity; every phone that will run FB Messenger already has texting.
I also don't understand how nobody seems to understand that the more crap on your phone is turned on, the faster the battery will run down. That alone is reason enough to keep "location services" shut off unless you need to use it; likewise bluetooth and wi-fi.
I do know one guy who had a
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Insightful)
most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.
It depends on how you phrase the question. If you ask people "Do you want corporations to track your location?" most people will say "no". If you ask if people if they prefer ads and discounts to be for things they are actually interested in, they most people will say "yes".
It is better to ignore what people say they want, and instead look at their revealed preferences [wikipedia.org]. Most people are willing to give up some degree of privacy for more connectedness and to save money. Personally, I don't care much if I am tracked, as long as I am informed and have the option to enable/disable at will. If I am going to see ads anyway, I prefer ads that match my interests (metal lathes rather than tampons, Rogaine rather than shampoo).
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Interesting)
Aside from a few Sheldon Coopers out there who would be shut-ins without social media, most people do not want to be tracked by GPS by a company which exists to sell information about them to advertisers.
This is it for me and the FB mobile app, I have just deleted it and will not be reinstalling it.
I only have WiFi or mobile data turned on when needed, usually for brief periods. After I'm finished, I turn them off until I need them again. I don't enable location services - never have. And I don't have a Facebook account - never have. I've rooted my phone, and the FB app, (along with all similar bloatware), was the first to go. And still, I'm sure I'm being tracked all over the place, if only to the degree of granularity allowed for by cell tower triangulation. If my provider can monetize that data, I'm certain they will. In short, these days there's only so much we can do, (short of dropping out of mainstream society altogether), to thwart advertisers and other collectors of personal data.
On a daily basis I think 'Fuck it, I'll cave in and let my privacy be whored out - I'll join Facebook, turn location services on, be one of the crowd, and try not to worry about it.'. But somehow, I can never quite manage to pull the trigger. Stubborn, I guess...
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Or just turn off the location permissions, mr computer whiz.
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Other options (Score:4, Informative)
You may want some, or all, of these:
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Yeah, my local mountain bike club has updates on the track condition, work days etc in facebook, our homeowners unions sends out updates on facebook, my local butcher on good deal about imported American meat.
So when I removed Facebook from my life, there were a few annoyances like that I don't see these updates anymore. But mostly it was a blessing to get rid of it.
If I were to enable my account again(do they "timeout" if they have been disabled for too long?), I won't be installing any of their apps on my
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently had Facebook prompt me to add a business associate as a "Facebook Friend".
I discussed with him the matter of how Facebook could have known that we know each other. I never used Facebook to communicate with him in any way, nor did I view his profile, and he says that he never even viewed my profile. We can only guess that the Facebook app on his phone (which I steadfastly refuse to install on mine) scraped my phone number from his contacts list and then Facebook somehow matched it up with my name.
Sad to say, that's exactly what I would expect them to do.
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> We can only guess that the Facebook app on his phone (which I steadfastly refuse to install on mine) scraped my phone number from his contacts list and then Facebook somehow matched it up with my name.
It's a permission the phone asks for, which can be turned off.
Re:Or make it critical for social networking (Score:4, Informative)
We can only guess that the Facebook app on his phone (which I steadfastly refuse to install on mine) scraped my phone number from his contacts list and then Facebook somehow matched it up with my name.
That's exactly my understanding of how it works.
In which case, they also scraped your email address(es), home address, and who knows - SMS / email conversations? Call history?
If this friend posted any photos at a time that FB's algorithms can place the two of you together (i.e. GPS says "current location = "rock_climbing_guy's" house +/- 100m, then they have photos of you (and the inside of your house, etc.).
The possibilities are endless and the only consolation is that FB has so much of this data that it's possibly difficult for them to gather what they have on you specifically. However, FB has some really talented people, so they can probably analyze what they have quite well and nearly instantaneously - should their attention turn your way.
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I, in California, have a friend in Iceland who I knew through an obscure video game back in the mid-90s. I have no Facebook account. He apparently does though, because Facebook's constant "you should join Facebook because all these people you know are on it" somehow knows that I know this guy on the other side of the world.
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I wonder how many Amish folks have FB accounts??
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Turns out all you needed to do to get people to voluntarily wear a GPS tracker is tell them it makes talking to their friends easier.
Not me.
The only cellphone I own is a "dumb" phone that I never use except to carry it with me when I'm out with the battery removed and taped to the back for use in an emergency. I also don't use any social media. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances that I have no trouble communicating with in the manner I wish.
I have skills and talents that people want, so they make the effort to contact me if they wish to benefit from them. It also helps screen those wishing to engage my time down to those who are
Reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another reason to keep Location Services off other than it drains my phone battery.
Re:Reasons (Score:5, Informative)
turn off Wifi as well. It can see what wifi AP's are available and use that data
Re:Reasons (Score:5, Funny)
Also turn off camera access, it can use AI to cross-reference photos to recognize your location.
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Somehow I think the inside of my pants, or the floor tiles looks the same regardless of where I am.
What you are proposing is either in the realm of lab experiment with very low success rate in highly controlled environments, or unhealthy paranoia that not even a tinfoil hat can fix.
Bomb Obama.
There, now the NSA are watching and they know that you know.
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So what are we left with? No GPS, no cellular, data, or WiFi, no camera. Why did I pay $99 and sign a two year contract for that?!?
No one is suggesting that you leave it off forever. Just when you are in certain areas.
Re:Reasons (Score:5, Informative)
Some apps crash if you prohibit certain permissions. But that's probably a good sign that you should uninstall that app (the developer isn't doing basic error handling). The only permission Marshmallow doesn't allow you to block is network access. But if you're rooted, it's trivial to install a firewall [google.com] and block specific apps from using your data and/or wifi connection.
Better Idea (Score:2)
1) If you do not need a mobile phone, do not carry one.
2) If you need a mobile phone, make sure it is not a smart phone.
3) If you must have a smart phone, turn off wifi, turn off location services, remove the microphone, and remove the camera.
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4) Print out maps when driving places. Also, watch TV to see if there's a traffic jam
5) Don't ever get lost. Or have a flat. Or run out of gas. Also, know where EVERYthing is.
6) Make sure not to destroy your phone while doing surgery to remove said microphone (making it only a audio out device, WTF do you even call that) and camera.
7) Hope you have a pinhole camera to take pics
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or don't use the Facebook app. I don't, yet I check in with Facebook from time to time, then close out the browser in my phone. They are soon to stop allowing people to use their chat unless you install their app, and again, I won't install it. I don't want Facebook to run in the background, but I still want to use Wifi and even GPS. If they stop allowing you to use any Facebook without the app, then I will stop using it on my phone. It isn't like Facebook makes me money or enriches my life, it just le
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Incorrect. Current Commercial Operating systems on the consumer devices are insecure. If we could actually get a full linux on a phone with some decent dialer/calling/texting API's baked in where the deviceowner can have 100% control over it then you can have a super secure phone.
Or be a dick to companies like facebook by feeding it random data... I like that idea better as polluting their data pool makes life better for everyone.
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Yet another reason to keep Location Services off other than it drains my phone battery.
Interesting. My first thought was "yet another reason to keep Facebook off my phone."
Location Services is useful to me. Facebook is not.
Not likely (Score:2)
It's laughable that any advertiser on a website thinks those ads are driving sales in brick and mortar shops. They might be driving some internet sales but I don't think most people view advertisement online as a real motivator to shop anywhere but online. I suspect Facebook will drop this soon when they realize there are no good returns on the data.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say:
Loyalty cards were invented because they allowed tracking of customer preferences etc.
Quite what data they get from them that actually results in greater sales I can't fathom (surely you can only give coupons for things, which results in less profit on things I probably don't want as I chose their competitor anyway) but in the era of having nothing like that, I'm sure it was a boost to discover that people who buy hot dog sausages also buy hot dog rolls.
But nowadays? And Facebook ads? You're suggesting that giving shops data on how many Facebook ads they bought resulted in someone walking into a store and buying products (which is purely correlative, not causative) is somehow profitable enough that it covers the bad press? I mean, honestly? How is that possible?
And surely it's "too late" if they've bought some Facebook ads to then tell the stores how many people went on to buy something. And couldn't that be done just as easily with a coupon, voucher, code etc. that's only in the Facebook advert? And then extrapolating from that to purely "we should buy more Facebook ads"?
I'm just not sure that I get this at all. How is it relevant to most stores, how many stores advertise on Facebook at all, how do you tie the correlation to a causation, what kind of rates are you expecting (aren't ad responses measured in PER THOUSAND and even then each is only a pittance of a measure?), and quite how does having all those statistics available magically make you more money than, say, putting up a sign or taking 5% off something?
It's Big Data applied to random human interactions again.
Re:Not likely (Score:5, Interesting)
At a certain point, it feels like the data is being obsessively collected to be used by marketing people with absolutely no math or statistics backgrounds to merely bolster whatever bullshit arguments, gut instincts or dart-throwing decisions they make.
Scientists schooled in the scientific method with math/stats backgrounds making a conscious effort to not fall into correlation/causation or selective bias errors often fail at producing good data.
A room full of marketing people, jockeying for corporate positions and status? That's a recipe for data errors.
It also makes you wonder how often the people responsible for the data alter it, simply to see what happens if they tweak the data so that suddenly it seems entirely sensible to sell polka-dot hats to 20-somethings or hoverboards to old people.
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Scientists schooled in the scientific method with math/stats backgrounds making a conscious effort to not fall into correlation/causation or selective bias errors often fail at producing good data.
In discussion like this I am always reminded of a little tidbit I picked up in one of my AI courses in college:
People who buy diapers in a grocery store on Thursday nights also tend to buy beer at the same time
Then there is this little gem about Target [businessinsider.com] from a while back.
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No, they don't understand that coupons drive further business. As if a little less profit is worse than no profit at all.
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It's laughable that you say it's laughable. Facebook ads do a fine job of driving people to brick and mortar. Arguably, it's one of the best ways to get customers in the door, especially since Facebook is the modern version of "word of mouth".
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Correlation and causation.
If I see an ad on Tuesday, and buy something from that ad on Saturday, how can the advertiser with any kind of reasonable certainty say that I saw the ad in the first place or just ignored it completely?
Unless I'm actually looking at Facebook ads while walking into the store related to those ads there are so many other factors at play in a time span of just minutes that it becomes a crapshoot at best.
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If I see an ad on Tuesday, and buy something from that ad on Saturday, how can the advertiser with any kind of reasonable certainty say that I saw the ad in the first place or just ignored it completely
You, specifically? They can't
You, in aggregate? They can watch trends.
But maybe you just woke up from a coma for 20 plus years & didn't realize this.
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It's laughable that any advertiser on a website thinks those ads are driving sales in brick and mortar shops.
They don't think it. They know it. Their ads almost always contain coupons or specific ad codes so they can track sales to specific ads. I have gone to local shops and restaurants because of deals I saw online, and many other people have as well. They wouldn't continue to run the ads if they weren't working. Very few companies run untracked ads anymore.
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The typical advertising deal is a store knows how much money it's making. The store purchases ads then measures how much sales go up. If they don't go up, they stop giving the advertising service more money.
Fuck you Facebook. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you Facebook.
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It's not just Facebook though... any damn app on your phone can do the same thing. Ultimately, many apps are going to have a map GPS-to-store functionality in their apps and will sell that info to marketeers etc. So if you're a smartphone user, expect to be tracked like hell.
Not a problem for me... (Score:2)
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So, you never leave your parent's basement, then?
Between commuting to my regular job and running a side job, I don't have time to go shopping at brick-and-mortar stores.
No it wont (Score:4, Informative)
Because I don't install special snowflake apps on my phone, and VERY VERY few of the ones I do get approved to ask for location data, and I take away any permissions I don't think they need.
First thing I did with my new phone was disable permentantly the first app that asked for my location data. (some hidden NFL app)
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I got bad news for you, sunshine: Your carrying a smartphone at all is more or less equivalent to wearing an ankle monitor like the police would put on you while you're under house arrest. You want to be free of being tracked by your phone? Get rid of it and get the simplest wireless phone you can find, with no GPS at all, and with a battery you can physically remove to completely shut it off
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Wow do you always go around making so many assumptions?
As I said, I avoid installing those apps. Yes, I have to trust more companies than I would like, I don't see why that means I should assume nothing works at all and just give up.
Just because its hard or impossible to decrease the amount of tracking on your to 0 doesn't mean that decreasing the insane amounts of it going on and shutting down some of its most prolific avenues has no value.
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Wow do you always go around making so many assumptions?
Nah, I'm mostly just being snarky and sarcastic, don't take me too seriously; my apologies if you were offended. Mainly I just hate smartphones, for what a security swisscheese they are, and for how so many people (not you, apparently) seem to be attached at the hip to them. Meanwhile they're being turned into yet another way to track and monitor people, invade their privacy, and overall take advantage of them (again, not you, apparently). The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach.
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Its frightening but, the phone company already has the tower data which gives them like 90% of this stuff and that is wide open to the government. Hell sprint a few years back had information about their portal linked... government pays money....gets access to your data. No oversight, no attempt....just monetization.
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Aww, that's adorable, he actually thinks that any of the 'privacy' settings on his smartphone actually do anything!
This is something that has been tested quite extensively for every device that offers such settings. It's why we know that disabling location services on Android stops the phone sending your location to companies, and it's why we know disabling telemetry on Windows may only change a very very small portion of the data your computer leaks out constantly to Microsoft servers.
You don't need to "believe" anything, you can just read up on any of the repeatable tests on the net. Start at XDA before you put on you
There are limits to GPS (Score:4, Interesting)
So what happens when you're in a multi-story building, like the Water Tower in Chicago? You may be in the Lego store, but 3 floors below is Victoria's Secret...
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Doesn't Google do that already?
Re:There are limits to GPS (Score:5, Informative)
Beacons
https://developer.apple.com/ib... [apple.com]
Re:There are limits to GPS (Score:4, Informative)
GPS returns altitude.
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This won't be using GPS, likely it will be using WiFi based services. GPS doesn't work indoors, especially if there's multiple stories above you.
Rare exceptions exist.
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iBeacon?
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You may be in the Lego store, but 3 floors below is Victoria's Secret.
You will get ads for Lego-sized see-through thongs.
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So what happens when you're in a multi-story building, like the Water Tower in Chicago? You may be in the Lego store, but 3 floors below is Victoria's Secret...
Turn your GPS off and walk through a super market which is mapped by Google. You'll notice they still know in which store you are. GPS doesn't work indoors without fixed stations which few if any stores actually have. Location can work by relative strengths of WiFi access points.
No, they won't. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you voluntarily install a tracking application on your phone, and give it permission to access your GPS - That doesn't "violate" anything (except "common sense").
Yes, I would consider anyone allowing this a complete idiot; but in no way does this affect anyone that doesn't want it to track them.
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If you voluntarily install a tracking application on your phone, and give it permission to access your GPS - That doesn't "violate" anything (except "common sense").
No, you're using funny words. The user wants the app to chat with friends (and he has no other option). What he/she has to pay for that service is all these permissions the app requires. I blame Google solely for this, since they don't allow the user to selectively disable non-essential app permissions like GPS tracking.
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(and he has no other option)
Yes they do. This level of tracking requires location services, something which you can disable and doing so only affects a minority of applications for which the service can be enabled at specific cases.
It's not anywhere near as bad as you make it out to be.
Sounds very cool. (Score:2)
Video demonstration here. [imdb.com]
Why this PopSci article? (Score:2)
An Apple user asks.. (Score:2)
Does Android permit any app to access Location Services without the user allowing it?
In iOS the default is "NO," and one has to explicitly grant access to any app that wants to access Location Services (and Microphone, Camera, Photos, Contacts)
It must be profitable, but how? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know no one ever went broke underestimating the idiocy of typical consumers, but do people _really_ buy every single thing someone sticks an ad in their face for? Is advertising really that powerful? Will knowing that X male, 35-44 year old, potentially Republican Facebook users entered the East Nowhereville Walmart make any difference to Walmart?
I admit I'm not a hipster embedded in the SV startup culture, but this new dotcom bubble based on advertising (again) is looking a lot like the old one from an outsider's perspective. The difference this time is that everyone has a tracking device in their pocket and voluntarily gives these marketing companies the Big Data they need. And oh yeah, real time machine learning cloud analytics for synergistic cross platform marketing opportunities.
I might be an outlier, but I find ads intrusive. I'm not pissed off enough to worry about blocking them, but I certainly remember which companies and products have shoved the most obnoxious ads in my face and avoid them when it makes sense. I just don't get _why_ advertising works; it's annoying! It doesn't make (smart) people more willing to buy your product!
If you have a good product, all you need to do is get it in the hands of a few smart people who will tell their friends about it. That's it; there's no mystery.
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Think of Spam. The price to advertisment reaching multiple millions of people is about equivalent to catching the interest of just a handful of the targets. Spam worked because even 0.00001% of respondents made it profitable. I think internet advertising is similar.
Re:It must be profitable, but how? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't get _why_ advertising works; it's annoying!
Yes, when it's too intrusive or "in your face." But marketing research for many decades has shown that "unconscious" (or "subconscious") processing for ads still has significant effects.
It's particularly prominent for simple things like brand familiarity. You may not be actively watching a TV commercial as you talk to a friend during the ad, but if your eye goes across the screen, you might see a product name. Or hear the product name mentioned repeatedly. Same thing with glancing through a newspaper or magazine -- you might not stop and read the ad, but repeated exposure to name brands will eventually register familiarity... even if you're not consciously thinking very much about it.
And thus when you go to the store, you start looking at the shelf for detergent and you see Tide. You've never really thought about laundry detergent consciously, but this name looks more familiar. So perhaps you're more likely to buy it.
It doesn't make (smart) people more willing to buy your product!
DING DING DING!!
Smart people are NOT the target audience for most ads. Smart people do weird stuff like research what laundry detergent might actually work better BEFORE they even go to the store. They might stop and read material and ingredients lists on the detergent before buying. They might even pull out their phone and verify that the claim to have "natural" ingredients even means anything, or if the detergent is just selling the same basic crap at twice the price for a "natural" label. (Pretty common practice these days.)
Smart people use and seek out information to influence a purchase. Advertising is all about finding ways to convince you to buy something on the basis of something other than rational thought and valid information. If it were about those things, the best ads would just consist of a list of specs for good products... and obviously they don't.
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HEINZ IS THE GOD OF KETCHUP, THERE SHALL BE NO BLASPHEME HERE
Err, I mean, advertising does not affect me that much. I only buy products that I have tried and have found to be good.
Flawed logic (Score:2)
...The will allow advertisers to see in real time which Facebook ads are turning into actual sales.
Has anyone ever proven the link between what ads I view and where I walk? The advertising industry has built their entire business model upon causality they hope happens, as opposed to causality they have shown to exist.
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Then I will... (Score:2)
The will allow advertisers to see in real time which Facebook ads are turning into actual sales.
If this is allowed, then I will intentionally go to the direct competitor of those advertisers and purchase goods and services there, instead. It's ironic that if the authorities wanted that type of data for an investigation, Apple and Google would fight turning it over, but seem quite content with FB using it for whatever invasion of privacy they want.
Google already does this (Score:2)
My Android phone recently started displaying toast messages asking me "Would like like to share this photo of *place you are at* on Google Plus?" Not only is it a privacy violation, it is a feature I absolutely never want to use. I don't even use Google Plus. SOOOO FRIEKING ANNOYING. It's like every other day now I have to find some app and disable it's ability to display notifications. And that's just hiding the problem, rather than fixing the underlying issue.
chicken? egg? (Score:2)
"That guy likes books. Let's show him ads for books."
"That guy went to a book store. I bet it's because we showed him ads for books, and not just because he likes books."
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"This guy likes books. He lives here. Let's show him ads for bookstores around here."
One more reason to hate Facebook (Score:2)
As if I didn't need another reason to be glad I'm not on Facebook...
This is a great thing! (Score:2)
The will allow advertisers to see in real time which Facebook ads are turning into actual sales
So maybe advertisers will finally understand that we don't give a shit about advertisements on a mobile platform and leave it alone.
I can see the code already (Score:2)
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That seems like it would be illegal.
If the FBI can get away with it, why not a Fortune 500 company?
Re:ways around this (Score:4, Interesting)
Install cyanogen. Configure it to give bogus information to apps that want location information for no good reason (all but navi).
Optional: Have that location be some ridiculously overpriced shopping district. Rodeo drive, Monaco, Manhattan etc. Just to fuck with the companies trying to monetize the information.
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0. Even better solution: Close your Facebook account. Tell people that want to contact you to use email or some other mechanism that isn't under the sole control of a single entity.