DOES FACEBOOK KNOW TOO MUCH?

AuthorBubar, Joe
PositionMEDIA LITERACY

Facebook, Google, and other tech companies are tracking your every move. Should Congress step in to protect your privacy?

Whenever Phoebe Companion-Racicot, 15, downloads an app on her phone and sees the option to log in with Facebook, she does it. After all, it's easier than creating a whole new account for the app. But it does make Phoebe a little suspicious.

"It worries me that someone is getting a hold of my information and I don't know what they are doing with it," says the 11th-grader at Colchester High School in Vermont.

She's not alone. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the detailed personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users wound up in the hands of a voter-profiling firm called Cambridge Analytica. The company obtained the data when users logged into a quiz app with their Facebook accounts. The information--including location data, private messages, and lists of every Facebook page users had ever liked--was later used to build profiles of potential voters for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The revelation that so much private Facebook data had been harvested without users' knowledge or consent sparked outrage and led many to question whether big tech companies know too much about us. Some lawmakers are now calling for regulations that would require companies to be more transparent about how much of our data they're collecting, who that information could be shared with, and for what purposes it could be used.

"Facebook can learn almost anything about you by using artificial intelligence to analyze your behavior," says Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. "That knowledge turns out to be perfect both for advertising and propaganda."

'Data Crunchers'

Practically everything you do online can be tracked, and much of it is. Facebook, as well as Instagram, which Facebook acquired in 2012, monitors users' every action on the sites: everything they like and post, their conversations, locations, and much more (see "What Facebook Knows About Me," p. 17). In fact, the company is so adept at gathering users' information that it can pinpoint when they're feeling "stressed," "overwhelmed," "anxious," and like "a failure."

Google, with its range of products including Gmail, Maps, Chrome, YouTube, and the Android operating system, is able to gather even more user information on people--everything from your entire search history on the web and where you live to the destination of your last vacation. Google Home, the smart speaker and voice assistant, has recordings of everything you've ever said to it, including all the times you've asked it to turn on or off your lights and how many times you've asked to listen to Rihanna's newest track (as does Amazon's Alexa).

Collecting this data is a big part of how Google, Facebook, and other big tech companies make money. Though Facebook and Google don't sell your data, they do sell access to you. Companies pay Facebook and Google to place ads on those sites, using the data that's been gathered to target consumers who may be interested in their products. For example, a company that sells athletic gear may post an ad on Facebook that gets shown to people whose interests include sports. Last year, Facebook generated $40 billion in online ad revenue--second only to Google's $95 billion.

Countless more companies use web cookies and other trackers that load in people's web browsers to collect information about their browsing activities. That's why you might see an advertisement show up on websites for the exact product you had just been searching for online.

"It's not just companies like Facebook and Google," says Jamie Winterton, a cybersecurity expert at Arizona State University. "There's a whole other slew of trackers and data crunchers that also sit in the back of the room, so to speak, and watch everything that's going on and build these data profiles not only of individuals but of populations of people."

Facebook, for its part, notes that when users sign up for an account, they must agree to the company's data policy. Still, many of Facebook's 2.2 billion users have no idea how much data it and other companies collect about them and how these companies use or share that data. Media watchdog groups say the information is typically buried in the terms and conditions, which people often accept without reading.

Senators Weigh In

In April, Senators Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, introduced a bill that would help address this issue. It would require websites to provide users a copy of the data that's being collected on them, as well as a list of who has had access to their data.

Two other senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, introduced a separate bill that would force companies to get consent to share or sell personal data.

In Europe, strict regulations already went into effect in May. The European Union passed new laws that require companies to explain in simple language how they plan to use and share people's personal information. And tech companies must ask for users' consent for their data.

While some U.S. lawmakers have cautioned against moving too quickly to adopt regulations before understanding how they would affect American tech companies, many privacy experts say such regulations are necessary to keep internet users' privacy secure. They argue that the Cambridge Analytica scandal makes it...

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