Applying Magic Source to Facebook

http://applymagicsauce.com/test.html

This plug-in, created by members of the University of Cambridge, can show you how well Facebook knows you based on your interactions on its social media.

So how well does Facebook know you? Bearing in mind this is one way in which it sends targeted ads and exposes you to things they think you'll like.

Of course the more you interact on Facebook the better it will be at guessing what type of person you are, personally I periodically purge all of my activity on Facebook, because to be honest none of it needs to be up there forever...

Reminds me of the episode of Parks and Rec when Ron gets a targeted ad that uses his name. He freaks out and removes all traces of himself from everywhere he can find. Even pulling his photo off of the wall of fame at a local restaurant.

It is pretty scary when you think about it.

i wonder what google and apple know about me

The rabbit hole of targeted advertising goes WAY deeper than most people think. Part of my job is to sell targeted advertising for CBS, and I can tell you that we know WAY more about people's online behavior than they think we do. We can target ads to a mobile phone of someone within a 10 meter radius based on their GPS location and information gathered from their online search and browsing behavior.

Think of it this way... you're shopping for a car. You walk onto a car lot. You take out your smart phone and use a website to begin comparing pricing on a car you want. You are suddenly served an advertisement for the dealer across the street. Why did you get that ad? Because we know based on your search history that you have been researching vehicles. We know which vehicles. We know based on your GPS location that you are at dealership A, so we target an ad for dealership B to you at the moment you are considering your purchase. And by the way, we also know about how much money you make and that you use a credit union, not a bank, so we will target loan offers to you from your credit union based on your likely credit score. And we know you were looking at Ford Mustangs, so the ad you received was for a Chevy Camaro instead. And we know you live in a warm climate and you have no kids, so the ad features a convertible two seat model. And it will be a blue Camaro because blue is your favorite color. And we will continue to serve you this ad on every website you go to.

How do we know all of this? You told us via your Facebook page, your viewing behavior on Netflix, that warranty card you filled out when you bought your new refrigerator, your purchases on Amazon, that website of your favorite sports team you visit and every other cookie saved on your computer. You get the idea.

Nothing in this scenario is an exaggeration. The only way to get around it is to clear your browsing history and cache every time you leave the internet, and even then there are traces of you out there. It is very scary when you think about it.

OB1Shinobi wrote: i wonder what google and apple know about me

Apple is about to know a lot more. The new iPhone has a camera that begins recording image and sound as soon as you open the camera app, whether you take a picture or not. Gotta wonder where all of these recordings end up. :dry:

i assumed they were already doing that
good to know theyre at least telling people its happening now

i wonder how long it will take with this type of data collection before someone makes a program that can predict what people are going to do next

yes this is very frightening when you think about it

like, 1984 frightening imo

OB1Shinobi wrote: i wonder how long it will take with this type of data collection before someone makes a program that can predict what people are going to do next

I'm pretty sure that this already exists, but I might be wrong.