DIGITAL MARKETING: Disclosure of Facebook's Ad Groups, Shadow Profiles, and Other Concerns

Since late 2015, I have logged and detailed an account of how Facebook has treated my profile in various spheres. I will briefly outline the findings here. I will provide an explanation of my methods if requested; however, the details I am providing should be sufficient.

1. Facebook has kept track of things that I write but do not post. Exact keyword and phrase match of items never posted led to my own profile. This is what began my investigation: I was writing a eulogy post regarding the passing of my best friend in 2015. I did not publish the post and yet I was targeted with a funeral ad later that week. This has apparently been the case for many other people and was disclosed by Facebook as being the case in 2018 by Mark Zuckerberg before Congress.
2. A dummy profile created by someone other than me five years ago has all of the same ad groups I am a part of. This profile could not be found through my account once I reported it, but family members could easily find it and were occasionally suggested this profile as a friend. Once a family member reported it, the account was removed from their view, but not permanently. The story of this profile is unclear and suspect. It also had face recognition on while my main account has it disabled; I tested this hypothesis recently with a post regarding this topic and this is when the shadow profile was suggested to my family member’s account.
3. I was placed into the “liberal” demographic group in 2015 when these groups became public as part of Facebook's transparency campaign. I initially assumed this was because I posted frequently in Facebook pages for overtly left-wing memes and videos, in which I would debate certain points in the comments. Since 2016, I have practiced deliberate targeting of keywords (i.e. “I am voting for Donald Trump,” and “I am a conservative”). In spite of this, an accelerated amount of left-leaning content was precipitated in my news feed. Even keyword-rich content by my former classmates which used “liberal”-heavy verbiage were promoted even if other posts by other friends or groups I follow were more popular and more relevant to my interests, including my girlfriend’s posts which I always like or comment. This could be an indication that I was being fed this content deliberately because of my posting history.
4. My personal information (email, etc.) was uploaded less than 100 times by different companies as a target audience when I was using a Yahoo! email address. When I switched to a Gmail account exclusively for Facebook, this number exploded to over 550 times in just over one year. This is suspect and indicates that either Gmail accounts are either easier to distribute and repurpose for ad groups, or that my email was being supplied directly to Facebook ad groups by Gmail. The latter indicates that Google is selling emails and related ad groups for profit.
5. Activity on Firefox with ALL javascript disabled, including Google Analytics and trackers based on Facebook pixels, still promoted catered ads. I have had javascript disabled for the past five years on a fresh browser with no history prior. A service for a company I signed up for with a NEW email account not associated with my Facebook profile, in which all analytics and pixels were disabled, still added my Facebook email to its ad group immediately after signup. This service was not basing it off of cookies, as it was a different browser. Facebook has to be using a different method of tracking consumer interests outside of the Facebook pixel and analytics JS that it does not disclose.
6. Facebook targets my account with “new job” content every time I start a new job days after I begin, even if I have yet to update LinkedIn. This can only be possible through location services, yet I have these services disabled.
7. Facebook suggested a tag for a family member in a photo I posted, despite the fact that this family member had closed their Facebook account over half a decade ago. I could not tag their account properly but the option appeared during the initial upload.
8. Finally, Facebook no longer discloses all the ad categories they promised they would show you in the past. You can verify this yourself. Settings > Your Facebook Information > Access Your Information > Ads > Your Information > Categories (tab). What was previously 100+ categories has been reduced to a dozen or less, yet ads have only become more specific and targeted.

Based on my history in the digital marketing space, this is not unusual, but to have it confirmed so blatantly even with how careful I am in my online activities is startling. I will continue this series based on observations in this industry and my own activities in targeting your feed with ads.