IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2202.04131.html

Facebook Shadow Profiles

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Aguiar
  • Christian Peukert
  • Maximilian Schafer
  • Hannes Ullrich

Abstract

We quantify Facebook's ability to build shadow profiles by tracking individuals across the web, irrespective of whether they are users of the social network. For a representative sample of US Internet users, we find that Facebook is able to track about 40 percent of the browsing time of both users and non-users of Facebook, including on privacy-sensitive domains and across user demographics. We show that the collected browsing data can produce accurate predictions of personal information that is valuable for advertisers, such as age or gender. Because Facebook users reveal their demographic information to the platform, and because the browsing behavior of users and non-users of Facebook overlaps, users impose a data externality on non-users by allowing Facebook to infer their personal information.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Aguiar & Christian Peukert & Maximilian Schafer & Hannes Ullrich, 2022. "Facebook Shadow Profiles," Papers 2202.04131, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2202.04131
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.04131
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catarina Sismeiro & Ammara Mahmood, 2018. "Competitive vs. Complementary Effects in Online Social Networks and News Consumption: A Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5014-5037, November.
    2. Garrett A. Johnson & Scott K. Shriver & Shaoyin Du, 2020. "Consumer Privacy Choice in Online Advertising: Who Opts Out and at What Cost to Industry?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 33-51, January.
    3. Anna, Petrenko, . "Мaркування готової продукції як складова частина інформаційного забезпечення маркетингової діяльності підприємств овочепродуктового підкомплексу," Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, Agricultural and Resource Economics: International Scientific E-Journal, vol. 2(01).
    4. Michael Trusov & Liye Ma & Zainab Jamal, 2016. "Crumbs of the Cookie: User Profiling in Customer-Base Analysis and Behavioral Targeting," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 405-426, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Kögler & Katharina Paulick & Jürgen Scheffran & Mario Birkholz, 2024. "Sustainable use of a smartphone and regulatory needs," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(6), pages 6182-6200, December.
    2. Maximilian Schaefer, 2025. "When Should we Expect Non-Decreasing Returns from Data in Prediction Tasks?," Papers 2503.03602, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tesary Lin & Avner Strulov-Shlain, 2023. "Choice Architecture, Privacy Valuations, and Selection Bias in Consumer Data," Papers 2308.13496, arXiv.org.
    2. Rene Laub & Klaus M. Miller & Bernd Skiera, 2023. "The Economic Value of User Tracking for Publishers," Papers 2303.10906, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    3. Hana Choi & Carl F. Mela & Santiago R. Balseiro & Adam Leary, 2020. "Online Display Advertising Markets: A Literature Review and Future Directions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 556-575, June.
    4. Nico Neumann & Catherine E. Tucker & Kumar Subramanyam & John Marshall, 2023. "Is first- or third-party audience data more effective for reaching the ‘right’ customers? The case of IT decision-makers," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 519-571, December.
    5. Vivian Welch & Christine M. Mathew & Panteha Babelmorad & Yanfei Li & Elizabeth T. Ghogomu & Johan Borg & Monserrat Conde & Elizabeth Kristjansson & Anne Lyddiatt & Sue Marcus & Jason W. Nickerson & K, 2021. "Health, social care and technological interventions to improve functional ability of older adults living at home: An evidence and gap map," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), September.
    6. Merja Anis & Kati Turtiainen, 2021. "Social Workers’ Reflections on Forced Migration and Cultural Diversity—Towards Anti-Oppressive Expertise in Child and Family Social Work," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Ian Parry & Victor Mylonas, 2018. "Canada's Carbon Price Floor," CESifo Working Paper Series 6959, CESifo.
    8. Persson, Petra & Qiu, Xinyao & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2021. "Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnoses: The Case of ADHD," IZA Discussion Papers 14020, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Uguccioni, James, 2022. "The long-run effects of parental unemployment in childhood," CLEF Working Paper Series 45, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    10. Sant'Anna, Ana Claudia & Bergtold, Jason & Shanoyan, Aleksan & Caldas, Marcellus & Granco, Gabriel, 2021. "Deal or No Deal? Analysis of Bioenergy Feedstock Contract Choice with Multiple Opt-out Options and Contract Attribute Substitutability," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315289, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Tommaso Colussi & Ingo E. Isphording & Nico Pestel, 2021. "Minority Salience and Political Extremism," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 237-271, July.
    12. Bruns, Stephan B. & Moneta, Alessio & Stern, David I., 2021. "Estimating the economy-wide rebound effect using empirically identified structural vector autoregressions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    13. Erkmen Giray Aslim, 2019. "The Relationship Between Health Insurance and Early Retirement: Evidence from the Affordable Care Act," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(1), pages 112-140, January.
    14. Burlig, Fiona & Preonas, Louis & Woerman, Matt, 2020. "Panel data and experimental design," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    15. Edna P. Conwi & Alexander G. Cortez & Normita Ramos, 2016. "Effects of the Dualized Training Program on the Occupational Interest of the Students Enrolled in Bachelor of Science in Hotel and Restaurant Management," Indian Journal of Commerce and Management Studies, Educational Research Multimedia & Publications,India, vol. 7(1), pages 31-36, January.
    16. Nihan Akyelken, 2017. "Mobility-Related Economic Exclusion: Accessibility and Commuting Patterns in Industrial Zones in Turkey," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(4), pages 175-182.
    17. Youngna Choi, 2022. "Economic Stimulus and Financial Instability: Recent Case of the U.S. Household," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-25, June.
    18. Camillia Kong & John Coggon & Michael Dunn & Penny Cooper, 2019. "Judging Values and Participation in Mental Capacity Law," Laws, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-22, February.
    19. Givanni Bonfani & Marco Villani, 2013. "Exaptation in innovation processes: theory and models," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2019. "Transforming developing country agriculture: Removing adoption constraints and promoting inclusive value chain development," Working Papers hal-02287668, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D18 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Protection
    • L4 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2202.04131. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.