Did you know Alarming New Study Exposes Facebook’s Intrusive Monitoring Of Users’ Online Activities
Tech giant Meta is again under fire after a new report exposed the
company’s Facebook app as invading user privacy by tracking their online
activities.
The study was conducted recently by leading company Consumer Reports who proved a whopping 2,230 firms that were engaged in sharing information of users through the Facebook app.
There
were also some alarming facts mentioned including how instances had
7000 firms involved who shared data amongst their users through Facebook
making the ordeal easy.
The news is very shocking because it comes at a time when the concerns
linked to data privacy are growing around the globe. The stats are
creating serious trust issues and may end up impacting the company’s
reputation as well. But in today’s markets such as the EU, data privacy
regulations are going strong and continue to be at the topmost agenda
for discussion.
Rules keep getting stricter and data privacy
regulations in place ensure no trust issues are broken. But with such
stats going strong, research like these proves that there’s a lot to be
worried about and so much trust has been broken when it comes to big
tech giants like Meta being involved in such behavior.
And in
regions where there is even more scrutiny now than ever, it means saying
hello to serious increases in legal and ethical issues.
Meta has been rolling out transparency tools of various kinds and refuted claims that it endangers users’ privacy.
Studies
like these continue to highlight big issues like the unclear identity
of data providers depending on what name was disclosed to users across
the board. It also spoke about firms rolling out services to top
advertisers so they’re able to disregard any requests where the user
could choose to opt-out.
So how exactly did this research come
into being? Well, the company began by collaborating with Markup to hire
close to 709 volunteers who shared data archives on Facebook. This is
where participants downloaded up to three-year data archives through
Facebook settings and went on to submit those.
This ensured the
firms could analyze all tracking services, unraveling how many firms
were sharing data belonging to users via personal data transfer
activities from one server to the next on Meta.
The study did
reveal how many of the findings could not be representative of the
American population in general. However, since the data arose from a
specifically selected group of people, it’s not conclusive to represent
the entire nation. At the same time, the results weren’t even adjusted
depending on specific demographics as well.
Some people who took
part were too concerned about their privacy and therefore weren’t
technically inclined. Let’s not forget the element of bias that arises
due to some members of the research firm also taking part.
So what does Meta have to say about all of this? The company mentioned how they’re giving rise to a long list of transparency tools to ensure people understand what types of data they share with the world and how it gets used.
