Facebook’s advertising principles and statements from the VP of ads, Rob Goldman, emphasize that its Ads Preferences tool allows users to “control how your data informs your ad experience.” However, Irfan Faizullabhoy and I have observed that when it comes to one of the most privacy-sensitive types of data, location, Facebook does not provide meaningful controls and is misleading in its statements to users and advertisers. Moreover, Facebook gives advertisers tools to run ad campaigns targeting people “who live in” or “were recently in” a geographic area as small as a single house. …
