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Tech

How to See What Facebook Tells Advertisers About You

The company lets you see exactly what interests advertisers see when they target you.
Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook's F8 conference in May. Image: Maurizio Pesce/Flickr

Facebook announced this week that its ad targeting systems will soon use the mountain of non-Facebook browsing data it has collected over the years, raising privacy concerns.

The company has been able to track user data for years through pages across the web that use social plugins like the "like" button, which was launched in 2010. The EFF previously asked Facebook not to retain data from third party sites, calling it one of the company's "outstanding privacy problems," but Facebook has continued to do so and announced in 2014 it would soon tailor ads based on that information.

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The social media site already targets ads to users based on their Facebook likes and activities, the specifics of which users can see by viewing the "Ad Preferences" page.

"We show you ads based on things we think you care about," the page says. "Your preferences include information from your profile as well as actions you take on and off Facebook."

Facebook claims you can opt out of these ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance AdChoices program, but the program only allows you to opt out of around 100 specific companies, relies on cookies, and as the EFF has noted, "does not actually stop tracking."

Despite using a separate ad blocker myself, I still have an extensive list of topics I am targeted for, according to the site. The list of foods, activities, and people Facebook thinks I am interested in is mostly accurate but sometimes baffling. A sample of the food and drinks I like, according to Facebook:

You can check your own Facebook ad preferences here (and tailor them to be more accurate to your interests, if that's what you want). Prepare for this list to get a lot more reflective of your activity across the web in coming months.