Facebook - Scary

[JustMeUC]

I don't LIKE facebook and have never once registered with my real name or real email address. However, so many things you need to be a member of facebook to see that I created a "fake" account to be able to access stuff. I also opened up a "fake" email address that I have never used for anything else.

So, I get emails from facebook all the time telling me I might know this person or that person... and about 50% of the time, they are correct!! How the Blankity Blank do they know this? I have never once made a facebook post, never put a picture up, or done anything else on my facebook account but looked at other peoples stuff.

Do they log my IP address then somehow trace it back to me by somehow linking it to my "real" email address? and how would they do that since my "real" email address has never been shared with them!!

Remember, other than this FAKE account, with my DOGS NAME (who has been dead for years) I have never made a post with my real name, or real email address. I do not see any possible way they can link the fake account to the real me, yet somehow they do.

What really got me? I started buying Serendipity Beer recently, probably half a dozen times in the past month, using my "real me" Grocery Store membership card and "real me" AMEX, and now I am getting the Do you Know Serendipity beer emails..... coincidence? Possibly, but I don't think so. It's not like I am getting a "do you know budweiser" email, Serendipity Beer is not a very well known beer to say the least. REALLY REALLY REALLY scary if it is NOT a coincidence.


I just deleted my "fake" account, reset my IP address on my router and really don't think I will ever get back on facebook again. It is creepy scary that they track me like this.....

 

[bltkmt]

Why is it scary?

 

[rbmrtn]

Have you searched for or purchased this beer online ? FB ( and others ) track by browser history/cookies not by IP address.

Facebook explains why it tracks you even when you’re logged out | News | Geek.com

 

[F4mandolin]

I like this cartoon on the subject....well....kind of related....

 

[Bestwifeever]

I get those all the time and I have a completely private facebook account that is only my name--no messages, no info, no photos, just saving my name. I "like" nobody, nobody "likes" me (guess I'll go eat worms....).

I am pretty sure FB has access to our email (we probably clicked on something giving that to them, or they're in cahoots with gmail or yahoo), because a lot of the people Facebook sends me emails about knowing are folks who have been CCs on emails that have been sent to me--I don't have them in my address book even. They are people who might have been in a class with me, or cc'd on a joke forward.

It doesn't bother me too much or I'd close down the FB account. I am sure no real person is reading our emails, it's just a bot picking up and matching addresses.

 

[JustMeUC]

Why is it scary?

I wrote out this long post then deleted it. If it doesn't scare people, then they wouldn't understand what my post meant.

Privacy is dead I am told, oh well, most people don't seem to mind but as for me I don't like it....

 

[Animorph]

I believe they and others will track much more if you remain logged into Facebook while you are surfing the internet. Of course deleting the account should work even better. You should also delete any Facebook cookies in your browser. I don't know how they would get your real email address. But they would obviously know all the people you looked up on Facebook and possible friends they would have in common. Sure the temp email account wasn't just forwarded to your real address? Sounds like something you would have to set up.

 

[JustMeUC]

I am certain I never gave facebook permission to access my emails.

I understand fully that the government is going to have access to my stuff. I don't like it but I know it. But why should a private/public company be able to see my emails?

I use a VPN, change countries frequently, clear my history and cookies daily. I have my prepaid smartphone hooked up to a prepaid CC that can't be traced back to me. However, I suppose the fact that I check my emails on it, pretty much negates all that if companies can freely read my emails without my permission.

 

[Marita40]

I'm with you; I find it creepy. I created a Facebook account just to see what all the hype was, but quickly deleted everything on it--I have no use for it. I did keep the account. Every so often I've looked at others profiles on Facebook (for example, I was looking for some high school friends for a potential reunion) but then sometimes the same people come up on a "People you may know" list. So I'm careful now about even viewing anyone's profile because I think they are alerted to it if you do. For me all this is truly creepy. . .just short of scary, perhaps, but uncomfortable to a large degree.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I am certain I never gave facebook permission to access my emails....

Maybe not, but this is on the Facebook sign-up page:

"By clicking Sign Up, you agree to our Terms and that you have read our Data Use Policy, including our Cookie Use."

Here are the Terms: https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
Here is the Date Use Policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy
Here is the Cookie Use: https://www.facebook.com/help/cookies

So chances are we gave FB permission to know more about us than our families do.

 

[W2R]

Yes, I think that is a little unnerving as well.

I have already given up on internet privacy. I don't go to any websites that I wouldn't mind everyone in town knowing I frequent. And, I try not to say anything political, private, or controversial in e-mails.

It's a brave new world, and we cannot change the way things are or are becoming. We have two choices.

(1) We can be upset and stressed by it and bear the health consequences of additional stress, which can be a lot as we age. Or,

(2) We can simply adjust our expectations. This has been my choice.

 

[JustMeUC]

I will go read the T&C now.... I bet it will take the rest of the day, LOL

I gave them FAKE email address which can in no way be traced to me but if the T&C's say that by agreeing to this that I have given them the right to read anything and everything on my computer at any time then I guess I did agree to it. Otherwise, they shouldn't be able to connect me with the "fake" me.

Tomorrow I will go buy another nexus 7 which I will now use to check my email and reply to emails, and that is all I will ever use it for. Hopefully that will ad another layer to the difficulty of them tracking me.

I feel like a criminal trying to hide stuff.... when all I want is some dag-gone privacy.

 

[rbmrtn]

They don't ( can't ) read your emails. They can use any browser to report stored email address. email addresses can be retrieved without to much effort from outlook and similar clients.

 

[Tyro]

I understand fully that the government is going to have access to my stuff. I don't like it but I know it. But why should a private/public company be able to see my emails?

Dude... Where do you think the govt gets that access/info from?

It was clearly leaked that they get phone call data from the cell phone network providers. Where do you think they get the email & other internet data from?

Tyro

 

[JustMeUC]

I still want to know if me buying Serendipity beer with my grocery store card or my AMEX caused them to send me the "do you know them" email. It just seems quite unlikely that it is a coincidence.

I used ZOHO as my email address with facebook and I never used that email address for anything else. My real me email address is with Gmail.

I suppose that cleaning out my history and cookies every day is no enough and using a VPN and constantly changing locations and IP addresses must not have helped either.

Oh well, like someone said, I'll do what I can then look for something else stress over.

 

[HFWR]

The people on Facebook are what's scary...

 

[rbmrtn]

Here's some more info on the how they do it...

How Facebook Tracks Your Web Activity - Business Insider

And it can come from the other direction. You used your discount card, they track what you bought, sold the info to a database that sorts all the various pieces then if they partner with FB, FB knows what you bought and uses the info.

There is no privacy on the internet, all info has to be tracked and stored otherwise it could not be sent anywhere.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I still want to know if me buying Serendipity beer with my grocery store card or my AMEX caused them to send me the "do you know them" email. It just seems quite unlikely that it is a coincidence. ....

Maybe it was just serendipitous.

 

[Texas Proud]

Who knows for sure.... but I think Google gets more info than FB.... but since they are not sending you emails telling you, that seems to be OK...



I wish we had a privacy law where they could not keep any data on us past 30 days.... (unless it was purchases at an online store).... IOW, all browser history they have has to be destroyed every 30 days... and the fine for not doing it would be big enough to cripple a company...

But that will never happen...

 

[JustMeUC]

The grocery store, or possibly AMEX must have sold my information, but HOW did they link up the real me buying that beer to the fake Facebook me? That is what I don't understand....

 

[rodi]

I'm choosing to be a luddite wrt facebook. Although my son wants an account (he's almost old enough) - and I guess I'd have to get my own and make him"friend" me so I can monitor it.

 

[CoolChange]

My take:

You have already given up much of your privacy if you choose to use the Internet, cell phone, credit card, bank account, public utilities, etc. (If you have ever done any work with a credit bureau or identity matching service, you will know the truth of this.)

If you use any kind of rewards programs (online, grocery store cards, hotel/airline programs, etc.) or social networking, the reality is you have no real privacy left. The combination of cheap computing power and lots of data (which is publicly available at little or no real cost whether you like the idea or not) means we have no real privacy.

Frightening, yep. But, I will keep collecting my airline miles and using the Internet since the benefits outweigh the costs and risks for me.

 

[ERD50]

They don't ( can't ) read your emails. They can use any browser to report stored email address. email addresses can be retrieved without to much effort from outlook and similar clients.

Can you explain how they 'report stored email addresses'? I don't understand this.

I don't LIKE facebook and have never once registered with my real name or real email address. However, so many things you need to be a member of facebook to see that I created a "fake" account to be able to access stuff. I also opened up a "fake" email address that I have never used for anything else.

So, I get emails from facebook all the time telling me I might know this person or that person... and about 50% of the time, they are correct!! How the Blankity Blank do they know this? I have never once made a facebook post, never put a picture up, or done anything else on my facebook account but looked at other peoples stuff.

....

What really got me? I started buying Serendipity Beer recently, probably half a dozen times in the past month, using my "real me" Grocery Store membership card and "real me" AMEX, and now I am getting the Do you Know Serendipity beer emails..... coincidence? Possibly, but I don't think so. It's not like I am getting a "do you know budweiser" email, Serendipity Beer is not a very well known beer to say the least. REALLY REALLY REALLY scary if it is NOT a coincidence. ....

It is creepy scary that they track me like this.....

OK, I read through the 'cookie' FB link that BWE posted, and I think I see how this happened.

Here is the Cookie Use: https://www.facebook.com/help/cookies

First, though - FB has not sent any of these to your 'real' email account, right - just you 'fake' account you set up for FB?

So on the cookie link, it first says FB only reads the cookies that it placed there (I think your browser controls this, and won't allow one site to read another's cookies). But then it goes on to say, if the site you visit publishes Facebook links (the 'Like' buttons for example), then it sounds like that page can create cookies that FB can read.

So...... if you visited the Serendipity beer site, and they have FB links, then it sounds like FB can make the connection. Or, if you visited your Grocery Store card site, and it publishes FB links, that could make the connection.

As far as the 'do you know this person' emails - easy, you said you visited other people's FB pages. FB knows the friends of these people you visited, and therefore you probably know them too. Was any of them Kevin Bacon? So they don't need to know who the 'real you' is - they just know this guy posing as a dead dog visited Joe, John and Beth's FB pages, and here's a list of friends common to those people, so let's send him a 'do you know these people' email.

None of this is particularly scary to me. Others feel differently, but I don't see what there is to get worked up about. I've had subscriptions to Hobby Magazines, and guess what - the magazines have ads for that hobby! OMG! And sometimes I get snail-mail ads from other companies that are in that hobby! Oh, the humanity!

This has been going on for decades, this is just the digital version.

-ERD50

 

[JustMeUC]

Yes, they only sent it to the Facebook email account. No, I did not visit the beers website.

If I want to use Google I realize they are going to track me.... I guess I thought Facebook wouldn't be able to but obviously I was wrong.

 

[JustMeUC]

The hobby magazine doesn't know everything about you, you are probably getting mail somehow related to the hobby. Facebook is aware of what brand of beer I am buying at the grocery store. Big difference.