Facebook Shadow Profiles
Publikation: Working paper › Forskning
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Facebook Shadow Profiles. / Aguiar, Luis; Peukert, Christian; Schäfer, Maximilian; Ullrich, Hannes.
2022.Publikation: Working paper › Forskning
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TY - UNPB
T1 - Facebook Shadow Profiles
AU - Aguiar, Luis
AU - Peukert, Christian
AU - Schäfer, Maximilian
AU - Ullrich, Hannes
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Data is often at the core of digital products and services, especially when related to online advertising. This has made data protection and privacy a major policy concern. When surfing the web, consumers leave digital traces that can be used to build user profiles and infer preferences. We quantify the extent to which Facebook can track web behavior outside of their own platform. The network of engagement buttons, placed on third-party websites, lets Facebook follow users as they browse the web. Tracking users outside its core platform enables Facebook to build shadow profiles. For a representative sample of US internet users, 52 percent of websites visited, accounting for 40 percent of browsing time, employ Facebook’s tracking technology. Small differences between Facebook users and non-users are largely explained by differing user activity. The extent of shadow profiling Facebook may engage in is similar on privacy-sensitive domains and across user demographics, documenting the possibility for indiscriminate tracking.
AB - Data is often at the core of digital products and services, especially when related to online advertising. This has made data protection and privacy a major policy concern. When surfing the web, consumers leave digital traces that can be used to build user profiles and infer preferences. We quantify the extent to which Facebook can track web behavior outside of their own platform. The network of engagement buttons, placed on third-party websites, lets Facebook follow users as they browse the web. Tracking users outside its core platform enables Facebook to build shadow profiles. For a representative sample of US internet users, 52 percent of websites visited, accounting for 40 percent of browsing time, employ Facebook’s tracking technology. Small differences between Facebook users and non-users are largely explained by differing user activity. The extent of shadow profiling Facebook may engage in is similar on privacy-sensitive domains and across user demographics, documenting the possibility for indiscriminate tracking.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - facebook
KW - privacy
KW - user data
KW - web tracking
KW - shadow profiles
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4032514
U2 - 10.2139/ssrn.4032514
DO - 10.2139/ssrn.4032514
M3 - Working paper
T3 - DIW Berlin Discussion Paper
BT - Facebook Shadow Profiles
ER -
ID: 310143917