The Markup has a great piece out today on mortgage companies sending data to Facebook via the ubiqitous Facebook tracking pixel.
The behavior documented in the Markup story aligns with what I’ve observed over years of tracking adtech and analytics: this tech is designed to hoover up data as much data as possible. It’s very difficult, and requires intentional decisions and precise testing, to use it any other way, and with some technologies (looking at you, session replay) it’s just not possible.
However, one thing stuck out about Markup story because I have also seen this over years: when Facebook is caught collecting data, they blame the people who use their technology. This excuse is front and center in the Markup story:
“Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools. Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business Tools to prevent this from occurring,” the spokesperson said.
This exact line has been used repeatedly. Scroll through the search results. The hits keep coming.
Journalists – please stop accepting this excuse from Facebook.