Web tracking & online privacy

With the online tracking scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg testifying to Congress back in 2018, our CTO, Shawn McCabe, recorded this Tech Talk video to discuss online tracking and how entities use it. He also offers ways to restrict some of the online tracking.

About this video

So many people use Facebook mainly to connect to friends, family, and others. It's all free to use, which enables people to get in quickly, but you are subject to targeted advertising in exchange for this free service. However, while this alone isn't a big deal, the information that Facebook collects is not only about showing you ads.

They encourage you to fill out a lot of personal information to complete your profile on Facebook; however, the scope of tracking isn't limited to the Facebook social platform. They implement a cookie in your browser and use other integrated methods that follow your browsing history throughout the internet, eventually creating a very robust profile about who you are. Even if you don't use Facebook, they attempt to maintain a profile about you using your unique IP address, and then if you make an account, they bring it all together.

On the one hand, Facebook uses this information to show you ads. Still, on the other hand, they also provide your information out to people who then do advertising and studies for commercial or academic/scientific reasons. The rules can be somewhat vague, which is where the recent problems came in involving Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica said they were using the data for academic purposes, but it was more for political targeting and marketing, which is a big red flag.

The takeaway is this: When you're using a service like Facebook, it's important for you to know what you're doing and how they use your data. If you're not comfortable giving Facebook all this information, you really just shouldn't use it.