Facebook Knows Much, Much More About You Than You Probably Realize

Facebook privacy issuesFacebook recently introduced ad education portal to help users understand how the site targets its ads. However, the site’s new transparency also revealed the amount of your information that Facebook provides to advertisers — 98 personal data points in all.

As most savvy users already know, Facebook tracks your on-site activity, your device and location settings, and almost every other website you visit. However, the extent of your private info it gathers is stunning, including your income and net worth, the square footage of your home, whether or not you’re an expectant parent, the number of credit lines you have and what kind of restaurants you like to eat at, just to name a few.

We probably shouldn’t be surprised that Facebook knows so much about us, but we should perhaps be worried.

“Facebook’s business model is to amass as much first-party and third-party data on you as possible, and slowly dole out access to it,” Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Washington Post. “If you’re using Facebook, you’re entrusting the company with records of everything you do. I think people have reason to be concerned about that.”

While Facebook touts itself as a free service, there’s a big hidden cost to using the site — your private information.

Be sure to check out our related post: How To Keep Companies and Apps From Tracking You On Facebook.