tracking ip address through facebook messinger

Imagine opening Facebook during a visit to an abortion clinic to communicate with friends for support in a difficult decision, and instead, seeing an ad campaign for cute baby clothes created by anyone who wants to target women making this difficult decision.įacebook could change its location-tracking policies to actually give users control over the data they choose to share in the future if it wanted to.

And since individuals cannot meaningfully stop Facebook from inferring or using their location for advertising, they also cannot avoid such ads. This means anyone in the world can create an ad campaign to reach people who have recently visited a particular location, such as a place of worship or an abortion clinic. The professor also offers the following example: But there may be cases where people could abuse this feature, since Facebook allows ad targeting down to a very small geographic area, like a house (as seen in the screenshot above). Also, many Internet users have no problem with Facebook swiping their location data for ads.

And Facebook does need to make money to keep providing its services. Some people may argue that it’s all standard operating procedure for companies that offer online services for “free,” with ads showing in the background of everything you do. The report explains that Facebook isn’t really forthcoming about its location tracking, nor is it willing to offer users controls that would prevent the social network from using IP addresses or Wi-Fi data to locate users. But the location-related ads keep popping up. Location tracking is turned off for all ads and she doesn’t share photos with location data on Facebook. She says Facebook can’t glean information about her from her other interactions with Facebook or its other apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger. Moreover, I have noticed that whenever I travel for work or pleasure, Facebook continues to keep track of my location and use it for advertising: a trip to Glacier National Park resulted in an ad for activities in Whitefish, Montana, a trip to Cambridge, MA - in an ad for a business there, and a visit to Herzeliya, Israel - in an ad for a business there. Even though the Location Services setting was turned to “Never” in the iPhone Facebook app, and Location History was cleared and turned off, Facebook still showed Korolova ads that matched her location. University of Southern California computer science professor Aleksandra Korolova explained how Facebook does it in great detail on Medium.

Tracking ip address through facebook messinger