This was initially going to be an anti-rant for Facebook.

Because of this:


No stupid symbols, not even a surname.

If you start typing someone's name, you get an inoffensive auto-complete which lets you link their name if you want to.

Slight downside is that it places a linked version of forename+surname and whilst you can edit/remove either part, the link gets removed when you do (so you must keep either the forename or surname unedited to preserve the link/notification), and I'm not sure if it's keyboard accessible (I suspect enter will post the message not select from the drop-down; haven't tried though).

But those are relatively minor points compared to not having to put up with fucking ugly symbols, and being able to remove the stupidly formal surname in the 98% of cases where it's irrelevant.


Unfortunately I then glanced to the right and saw...


Aside from them actually being entirely unrelated to the post/comments, why is Facebook showing me Croydon-based advertising?

I have nothing anywhere in my Facebook profile telling them I'm in Croydon, nor have I ever given them any permission to know even my crude location.

There's a possibility that I once had South Croydon in my "location" field, but if I did I blanked that (and most of my profile) a long time ago (as in, several years). Suggesting that they are keeping old information not just current information, but not only that - letting advertisers use it too.

And that pisses me off. :@

Would your IP not be giving them a pretty good indicator of location too, or are you not at home?

Maybe you should leave all your profile information as it is, move to another county (out of London :P ) and see if facebook tracks you there. It's the only way Peter!

What the milky one said.

 

IP based tracking, just like Google do so easily when it looks for results near you. Fairly crude since when I'm at home in Bury it thinks I'm in Bolton. But with Facebook it probably just keeps track of where you most often login.

 

It isn't a bad thing though, because when you log in from a very different location, like a different country, it makes you do some security checks before it lets you in. I had this when I was using Facebook in Abu Dhabi, it made me select from a list of people who were tagged in various photos so it could actually confirm it was me, I rather liked it.

I knew someone would say that.

Conveniently, when I earlier went to double check my profile was empty, Facebook showed me the following in the advert column:



Maidenhead being the place my IP resolves to, and also a place that's not particularly near to me.

So no, that's not where they're getting it from.

Not bothered by country-wide new-login-location checks for account security.

That's entirely different to selling my removed information to advertisers.

As above, this IP never resolves any closer than Maidenhead.

They're probably not selling it to the advertisers. Just displaying ads which match your location, which is a different thang.

Don't care, it still offends me.

And they're still selling the use of the information to the advertisers, even if not the specific data value. So they are cheating advertisers with out-dated information.

Adblock.

Opera. :(

lol

Are you connected using 3G? They'll be able to infer from that which areas you spend most of your time in, because your provider sells that information on to them. Oh yes. (Possibly.)

:|

Don't use Facebook then.

:|

All of these services would be chargeable without adverts. Just saying...

I want to install a component on all computers so that whenever someone writes "just saying" it opens a hatch and punches them in the privates.

And if they also say anything equivalent to "you're not allowed to complain because it's free" or "the adverts are the price you pay" or similar then it also slaps them round the face.

Are you this angry in real life?

I don't entirely subscribe to that notion, and free things can certainly be shit but the adverts are the price you pay and honestly, if you dislike it so much just stop using it.

I don't particularly enjoy the Facebook experience, but it's free and mostly works.

I think/hope that model of business is going to die off soon. Someone really needs to find another way to make websites pay.