After reading “Your ‘Anonymous’ Browsing Data Isn’t Really Anonymous” by Daniel Oberhaus, I became aware of all the data advertising companies have access to. I don’t often post on social media, but I do frequently visit social media to remain updated on who I’m following. I’ve noticed ads pertaining specifically to me more recently on Instagram, I follow a lot of rappers and local rappers and recently I’ve gotten many rap related ads. On Facebook I often see ads related to things I’ve looked for on Amazon. Though Facebook and Amazon are two separate sites I’ve noticed they share user data since all my ads are directly specified to what I’m interested in on Amazon. An interesting flaw in this data is since I share an Amazon account with my family, the advertisements I receive on Facebook don’t always pertain to me, but instead are directed towards my brother but Facebook doesn’t know we share the account. Snapchat is different than Facebook or Instagram since I only use it to follow personal friends, not celebrities, and on Snapchat you don’t create a personal profile that others can see to learn about you. Interestingly I still receive personalized advertisements on Snapchat. Snapchat does track location, and I chose to keep my location on so I could use geographically related filters. Snapchat has used my location to direct me to ads for businesses in the Pullman and Moscow area. Even Facebook has done this same thing even though I didn’t update my profile to say I am living in Pullman. Advertisers have access to an abundance of personal data, in some ways I can change settings to avoid this but often this takes away options within apps that are useful.
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