Facebook Apps Collect and Sell Personal Information
It turns out those quizzes we take for fun on Facebook are big information traps. There are companies that disguise their surveys as fun quizzes in order to collect more information about you. Not only do these quizzes ask you to give them access to your Facebook profile’s information, they also ask you to input and/or clarify any additional personal information.
You shouldn’t allow your personal information be abused by big companies that are seeking to change your mind. These quizzes are far more sinister than they seem to be on the surface – these companies are trying to change your mind to maximize their profits.
Not just a quiz
Age and gender are two of the biggest indicators that data analytic companies look for. This information tells them a lot about you, and subsequent questions help them finetune their profiling tools. This has been going on for a while behind the scenes for many years. The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal has only confirmed what many tech savvy people have suspected for a long time. Automated ads have transformed into internet stalkers – following your every step and then shoving tailored marketing campaigns in your face.
Facebook has been accused of showing people fake news, specific links, targeted ads, and other politically related things during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. With most of the world and the United States using Facebook, it’s safe to say that Facebook has a significant effect on how we receive information in our daily lives.
Cambridge is a famous university, renowned for its world-changing research. When a quiz is presented to Facebook users as academic research, people generally like the idea of helping academics proceed with their data gathering mission. But Cambridge Analytica, somewhere along the way, changed from academia to business. The details are still up in the air, but there’s something definitely fishy about both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s alibis. Neither party should be trusted. Both are blaming each other, when in reality, they both manipulate the internet to show biased news articles and ads.
Cambridge Analytica used personal information for political reasons. Facebook uses personal information for business reasons as well. All the quizzes collected went directly into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica’s servers. Both parties used this data to target ads towards users.
Another Facebook data breach
For a company that claims to protect user privacy, Facebook seems to have lost count of how many times it has been hacked. This billion-dollar tech company should be able to hire the best cyber-defense programmers and buy the best hardware available, but most of its users signed-up for free, and use its services for free. Lip service is always cheaper than actually doing what needs to be done after all. However, lip service is not what users like you and I deserve. Even if the product and service is free, promises made should be promises kept. Personal information is valuable and affects our wellbeing.
The most recent scandal exposed personal photos of 6.8 million users to third-party developers back in September 2018. It’s strange that none of these third-party developers said anything, but that’s beside the point – personal information, once again, was not properly protected by Facebook. There are hundreds of developers on Facebook and there’s only a very small possibility that all of them are completely honest. It won’t be surprising when these personal photos wind up on the internet. When that happens, you should immediately contact Wiperts to help you remove your personal information from the internet.
People upload embarrassing if not outright explicit photos on Facebook all the time. These photos get circulated and ruin lives. If you find something that wasn’t meant to be shared with the world, then trying to get it removed is a daunting task. It may show up on one website or many websites. Each website is another headache to deal with, because every website operates differently in regard to take-down requests. Wiperts has a team of experts with a wide range of expertise – removing your personal information from multiple websites is what they have been trained to do. When your private data eventually surfaces on the World Wide Web, you know who to contact. Don’t hesitate to ask for help. Wiperts will help you keep your private life private.
