The phone number you have never given to Facebook can be used for ad targeting.

YOU CAN USE RARELY your phone number nowadays, but the good news is that someone always gets something out of it. The bad news is that it's the giant Facebook. The researchers discovered that the company can use your phone number to announce you even if you have never shared it with Facebook.

When Gizmodo First, targeted ads could be addressed to someone via a phone number, even if they did not provide the number in their profile, Facebook admitted that, yes, he could sometimes use the number you provided for two people. authentication for advertisements. But why are you so hard on this? He only wanted to offer you the best possible experience based on advertising, as would any international technology giant.

"We use the information provided by people to provide a more personalized Facebook experience, including advertisements," said a Facebook spokesperson. "We clearly know how we use the information we collect, including the contact information that users download or add to their own accounts.You can manage and delete the contact information you have downloaded at any time."

So that's fine, then. The company also said that if you are the kind of killjoy that does not want its security information to be used for flogging, you can simply switch to a form of 2FA without a phone number. This option has been available for four full months So, what are you sorry for? No, you could not do it before, but in fairness, you did not know that your private life was sold in the river at that time, so you would not have wanted it anyway. Stop being so unreasonable.

But come back to Facebook's statement and there's more hidden between the lines.

Here again with an additional emphasis: "We use the information people provide to provide a better and more personalized experience on Facebook, including ads. We clearly know how we use the information collected, including contact information. that people download or add to their own accounts. You can manage and delete contact information you downloaded at any time. "

In other words, they confuse the information you provided – which can be deleted – and the information that comes from other sources, which is impossible. An example confirmed by the researchers: if a friend shares his contacts with Facebook, including your phone number, advertisers can use it, but you can not delete it because the information belongs to the friend and not to you .

"People have their address books, "said a Facebook spokesperson in Gizmodo." We understand that in some cases this may mean that another person may not be able to control the contact information that

Understanding is a positive first step. In fact, acting would be a useful second. μ