Facebook tracks users and friends of users wherever they go on the internet, in order to track when users are looking at pornography sites. Many users visit these sites at roughly the same time each day allowing Facebook to predict when a user will masturbate to within an hour.
The details were leaked by a former Facebook engineer who is upset over the lack of privacy regarding the information that is being collected on every user who uses the internet. “They (Facebook) are going too far with their methods to collect data,” said former Facebook employees Tom Singer. “I had to quit because of moral concerns. Does Facebook really need to know when I am or about to jerk off? The size of this project has increased exponentially over the past year and a half.
“The company argues it’s an untapped market and useful data came come of it.”
All internet tech giants have similar information on their users. Google, Apple, and Amazon all have mountains of information on anyone who uses the internet. The main purpose is to sell advertisements to the proper users. But should some information or habits be off limits?
This comes amidst allegations that Facebook hand picks what stories are allowed to go viral and the company is set to meet with Congress next week to explain its influence over the American public.
According to user agreements for every app and website, you allow such data to be collected. What they never tell you is how it’s used. There was an instance where a wife began seeing ‘cheat on your wife’ ads when she used the home computer. These ads were shown because the husband had used a similar site and advertisers wanted to show him more options.
The wife didn’t understand until a tech savvy friend told her why those ads would appear. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to user privacy.
“Facebook knows 3 billion people’s masturbation habits,” confirmed former Yahoo advertiser director Steve Micheals. “What they plan to do with that information is unknown at this time. Obviously, certain ads could be timed. We don’t know, but we do know graphs and other analyses have been done on this data.”
“It’s a bit scary if you ask me. To think Facebook spends millions to calculate people’s masturbation habits is also unnerving and creepy.”
One of Facebook’s many server farms is solely dedicated to storing users masturbation habits and the small team of analysts that crunches the data.
At this stage in the progress of the internet, the company who holds the most data leads the way. The companies are now just beginning to add the data to algorithms to see how to place ads better. In the case of the wife, advertiser now know not to show extramarital affair websites especially if the first few sites visited are ESPN, IGN, or other manly internet habits.
Deleting your web history might cover up some information from a spouse but has no effect on advertisers whose sole goal is to generate clicks for profit.
If you have been using Facebook for 7 years, they now have 7 years of your porn viewing and masturbating habits ready to be monetized, at just pennies at a time. But if I know porn, those pennies will add up quickly.
