I recently attended a Consumer Reports (CR) Community webinar that presented the results of a CR "study ... designed to help researchers better understand the state of the surveillance economy in 2023 and real-world surveillance practices, including hard-to-measure server-to-server data transfers. Based on the findings of this effort, we have also developed policy proposals."
The full report is available at https://innovation.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/CR_Who-Shares-Your-Information-With-Facebook.pdf along with a Markup review at https://themarkup.org/privacy/2024/01/17/each-facebook-user-is-monitored-by-thousands-of-companies-study-indicates. CR reached out to its members last July to download and submit from Facebook, including Custom Audiences (personal identifiers) and Events (user actions on the web collected through a Facebook-provided script or tracking pixel). Companies provide this information to Facebook so that Facebook can deliver targeted advertising.
The 709 datasets analysed showed that 186K companies shared data with Facebook. The average study participant was associating with over 2.2K companies. The top 100 companies (listed in the study) shared data of more than half the study participants. The study suggested that some companies were buying lists from data brokers and then submitted the information to Facebook, even if the individuals in the lists had no dealings with the company. The webinar also mentioned that Facebook collects data in "shadow profiles" on people who never signed up with Facebook and therefore never had the opportunity to opt-opt.
CR developed a "Data Bootcamp" (https://innovation.consumerreports.org/data-action-day-2024/) that provides additional information and specific steps that we can take to increase privacy. I have deleted my Advertising Id and disabled Ad Topics on my Android devices. I am also evaluating Privacy Badger. In the process of downloading Facebook data via https://accountscenter.facebook.com/info_and_permissions and Your activity off Meta technologies, I found that Manage future activity was already set to Disconnect future activity which meant I had no Facebook data to contribute.
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