Facebook has been accused of violating privacy . In an effort to improve this aspect, the platform is introducing a new featurethat will allow users to see more information about the businesses that upload lists of their personal information, as well as about the advertisersthat use those lists to display targeted ads.
Users will now be able to see which businesses upload and share lists of user information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. Facebook says it uses a process that prevents third-party companies from seeing users' identifying and contact information
In addition to the companies that share the data, Facebook is now revealing the advertisersthat use these lists of information to build your profile and send you ads that are close to your interests. Facebook maintains a list of advertisers that have shown at least one ad in the past seven days. As of Thursday, that list included 57 advertisers.
Users will also be able to see why they are seeing a particular ad on Facebook. When users tap the “Why am I seeing this ad” option from an ad’s menu, they will be able to see more information. For example, they can see how they connected to a particular ad and whether that information came from a previous visit to a site or a specific Facebook page.
On Facebook’s “Ads Preferences” page, users can view this information and choose specific settings for ads. They can, for example, turn off ads that are shown based on datareceived from third-party companies. They can also hide certain ad themes.
