TO PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY !!

Have you ever wonder why powerful tools like Google Search, Gmail, Facebook, X, Tiktok, etc are all free to use ?

When you see they sell nothing, then you are what to be sold !

Advertisement is the main profit source that keep most of online tools free nowadays. Advertisement is not bad when it brings information to us in proactive way so we don’t have to spend time investigating market options. But due to this indirect method of advertising, we can’t know who actually behind it. And in fact, this has become an ideal channel for scammers to lure users via social networks. A lot of students, elders were victims because they has least knowledge and experience online. And when many companies systems were infiltrated, hacked, stolen data, personal data of users is leaked globally. These problems, when combine together, harms our privacy !

This post reveals some methods around online advertising industry found on Facebook and the same also can be applied in every social networks as well.

How anyone can make you read something while using Facebook ?

Given that we are all using some banking or non-banking applications, and on the news we hear about companies behind those application are hacked, and data is leaked on some dark web. Dark webs are websites operated outside the laws and are the ideal places for criminal activities which selling hacked data is the most popular. Today anyone can buy leaked data using Bitcoin or Ethereum to hide their identity completely. When someone has our name, phone numbers, emails or even addresses, they can search for and start stalking us on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, X, etc, then after that they pay to run a targeted ads campaign with information they know about us, and let Facebook algorithm handle presenting that ads to our mobile phone.

How can advertisers control who will see their ads:

1. Custom Audiences

Facebook allows anyone to use phone numbers, emails, or names to directly target a specific user:

• Advertisers upload a list of customer data (CSV) to Facebook Ads Manager.
• Facebook matches the data (phone/email/name) with existing user accounts.
• Once matched, only those users in the list will see the ads.

This is the most direct method of delivering ads to a known individual.

2. Lookalike Audiences

Based on a seed audience (e.g., 100 users with names and emails), Facebook finds other users with similar behavior.

This is indirect targeting, used to expand reach to similar users even advertisers don’t know names or emails.

3. Geotargeting / Geofencing

Facebook allow anyone to use the user’s location (address or GPS) to limit where an ad appears. This usually being used by physical stores. If you ever notice when you pass by some stores, you more likely see their ads on news feed.

4. Interest, Demographic, and Behavioral Targeting

When no personal data is available, Facebook allows anyone to filter audiences by:

• Age, gender, region, job title
• Online behavior (e.g., searching for a laptop, following specific pages)
• Past engagement with posts, videos, or websites

This is an indirect ways but still get ads appear to us.

Lesson

By utilize above methods, anyone, real advertisers, or even scammers, can show some messages to our face when we are scrolling on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, etc. Social Network applications, one hand, create free tools to soothe the desire of connection in people, and one hand, sell privacy to anyone willing to pay.

Although most of ads is not harmful, make sure to share just enough on social networks, to avoid worst situations that scammers can use ads too !