Do you still think your usage of Facebook is “not a problem” for you? Read the article at http://bit.ly/2jQYUqM and then re-consider your opinion.

Here are a few short excerpts from the article:

“Facebook is very good at collecting data about people, whether you have a Facebook account or not. They are also able to track you across the internet.”

“When you’re on Facebook, everything you do is monitored and recorded and stored somewhere. This includes private messages and URL’s shared through Messenger. This allows them to amass a tremendous amount of data about anyone who has a Facebook account. In addition, Facebook compiles detailed dossiers on users, including user data they obtain from commercial data brokers.”

“Among the list [of things about you] you’ll find items like education level, location, anniversaries, hometown, property ownership information, employer, style and brand of vehicle you drive and what year it was purchased, whether you’ve donated to a charity, and much more.”

Of course, all of this information is available for sale to any company that wishes to pay for it, including advertisers, credit reporting agencies, political organizations (including the now-defunct Cambridge Analytica), and various companies that are owned by the Russian government. In addition, hackers around the world often steal this data, either directly from Facebook or from the companies that paid for your personal information.

Again, the article is at http://bit.ly/2jQYUqM.

My thanks to PrivacyBlog reader Peter Bradish for telling me about this article.