Facebook's user-targeted ads have been fueling profits and unsettling privacy advocates since the beginning, but a new report shines a light on just how extensive the company's research is. As it turns out. Facebook's data-collection efforts don't stop once you leave their site. They don't even stop when you leave the internet.
This week, the New York Times shined a light on four companies contracted by Facebook to provide user data from outside the site — ranging from court records and survey data to point-of-purchase information collected by retailers. Combined with Facebook's internal analytics, it allows the company to build a comprehensive profile of each user, including information they haven't shared on the site, which allows advertisers to more accurately target specific demographics, or even specific users. In one example, Facebook targeted specific users with ads for items they had previous browsed on the e-commerce site JackThreads.
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