Keep Your Data Safe From Facebook Ads

Facebook mines your personal and business information from your profile and sells it to advertisers. This is actually a very beneficial process as it matches us with advertisers whose products we are likely to be interested in. Targeted adverts are beneficial to both advertisers and users but Facebook’s ad process can be very creepy in certain instances.

In 2016, Facebook decided to make advertising far more targeted by developing partnerships with four major data brokers. Essentially, these brokers will create incredibly profiles of our online lives and tying it to our offline lives. When Facebook combines all of this data, it will have far more information about us than it has ever had before. So what can you do about this?

Opt out from the brokers

You can personally opt out of this advanced data collection system but you will need to make it happen. Three of the brokers; Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilom; allow you to avail this option while the fourth broker BlueKai provides users with no such option as yet. It is believed that the company will roll out with the option soon as there are scores of people who are resistant to the idea of allowing Facebook even more access into their personal lives.

Use an ad-blocker

Ad blockers can allow you to prevent companies such as BlueKai from collecting your browsing data across the web. Certain blockers such as Ghostery and AdBlock providers users with the ability to block certain trackers used by advertisers to collect data. You can also download a specific security apparatus to shield your data across social media platforms. For example, Panda Gold Protection allows users to directly shield data from the likes of Facebook and Twitter. With such a platform, you can limit the tracking habits of Facebook and the data brokers.

Modify your Facebook settings

You can choose to opt out from options such as allowing third party sites to access your information and Facebook to share information about what you like with your friends. You can limit the number of systems you access Facebook from and always use a VPN when accessing Facebook. You can go to the ‘Facebook Ads’ section and completely change the amount of information that can be accessed by Facebook and third parties. Also, you should remove all the permissions that you have given to dozens of Facebook apps over the years to reduce the likelihood that your information is taken.