FACEBOOK IS NOT THE ONLY COMPANY WATCHING YOU...
Facebook optimizes its user experience around certain psychological vulnerabilities. Basically, every app you use is capable of using your information to tweak how you engage with their app.
If you want to see for yourself, take a look at some of the tools that are currently being used. There are multiple software development kits (SDKs) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) products that are built for optimizing the social and user experience.
There are SDK's such as UXCam, that can record your screen while you are using a certain app. The video gets sent to the server and then the app makers can see how you use the app in real-time. This means someone could be watching your every move on your phone, and then perhaps use the information to create a more personalized experience on their app.
There are also more commercially available SaaS products, such as Hotjar, that monitors the mass amount of user sessions on websites and then provides their clients with heat maps describing the most active portions of every page.
When you open an app, it could check some of your details such as your IP address, device ID, GPS location, and email in order to create a match with an identity, often linked to a fingerprint.
These companies can then track your behaviour within the app, including interests, demographics, preferences, and purchases.
All of the data is shared with every other app that uses SDK. Think about that sentence. What it means is that this makes it possible for any developer using the SDK to purchase a bunch of data about your online behaviour – from every app using it from the second you download it. (Scary I know, but wait – there is more.)
You are basically up for sale
Maybe that is a bit extreme, but if those tools are not enough to give companies information and insights into how you interact with their products, there are businesses that essentially package and sell your data to the highest bidder. Countless startups buy and sell lists of user information to companies to help them refine their ad targeting and user experience. It is not all that bad. The use of the tools and services can help greatly improve the user experience across the board. If you have ever wondered why many popular apps have an incredibly intuitive user experience, it is because the interface is built upon millions of user interactions with the site.
Many people feel creeped out that hundreds of companies may or may not know everything about them, from how long it takes to hit "Add to cart" or whether or not they liked a certain embarrassing Facebook Page in high school.
The BAD, and then there is... The GOOD
While the internet is an all-powerful search engine, businesses are studying every online-user as if they are lab rats, but then again it is nothing new.
Grocery stores, for example, have a layout that is primarily orchestrated to lure people into spending more money. They know that majority of the customers are likely to turn right when they walk in, so grocery stores place more attractive and sensory things such as hot foods, bakery – I mean who cannot resist fresh chocolate chip cookies – and visually stimulating fresh produce right there. All you basically went there for was eggs, milk and frozen meat, but they all seem to be tucked away in some obscure corner in the back of the store. It is done this way so people can trek around the entire store and buy more things before finally getting what they actually came for.
The same concept applies to the wild interwebs. The Internet allows for much more fluid and rapid testing and the user experience can greatly improve over a matter of weeks.
Internet companies have an eerily accurate understanding of everything about us. What they choose to do with it has been a hotbed of discussion for years. We have definitely got our fair share of good actors and bad actors and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to tell who is who.
Stay safe out there fellow internet-browsers!