Are Websites Unknowingly Selling My Information?

A large percentage of people in the world use social media daily. The question is: how do social media companies make money if the services they offer are free? A common saying is: if you are not paying for the product, you are the product.

Most social media companies like Facebook and Twitter make money through advertising sales. It’s not a new concept: TV broadcasters and newspaper publishers have been doing this since long before the internet was invented. The revenue of social media companies comes from advertisers using their platforms to reach potential new and existing customers. 

Meta (the parent company that supersedes Facebook and also owns Instagram) earns money by selling users’ information to data collection companies which then sell it to third parties. Advertisers can then use this data to target specific audiences. This is how activity on Facebook influences the ads that pop up on your screen. 

What Data Is Collected By Social Media Companies?

Have you ever wondered what information is actually collected and stored by Facebook? It’s your name, phone number, payment information, email address, videos and photos, IP address of your device(s), network and connection informations, messages, content, watched videos, time, frequency and duration of online activity, people you communicate or share content with, as well as views and interactions with content and ads. That’s quite a lot of personal information, isn’t it?

It gets a little concerning if you think of the Cambridge-Analytica scandal of 2018, when Facebook reached infamy for selling users' data to third parties. The data is anonymized, but it’s still unknowingly being used to create targeted advertisements.

How Do I Protect My Personal Data?

While there is no current way for individuals to share in the profits generated through the use of their social media data alone, we can protect them from being used by others through certain practices. A VPN, for example, hides your devices’ IP address and your web traffic from your ISP.

Another way to protect your social media data is investing in identity theft protection. Of course, we cannot really know what social media companies take from us. Nevertheless, good security practices do protect us from hacking and serious cyber crimes. Check out our article on phishing scams and our other articles on internet safety to learn more.