In 2012 the company announced it would target ads based on mobile app use, as it worked with Datalogix to determine when online ads result in a real-world purchase. This gambit required mining personal information, including e-mail addresses, from user accounts. In 2012 Facebook also gave advertisers access to targeting data that included users’ e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and website visits, and it admitted that its system scans personal messages for links to third-party websites and automatically registers a “like” on the linked web page. By 2014, the corporation announced that it would be tracking users across the internet using, among its other digital widgets, the “Like” button, in order to build detailed profiles for personalized ad pitches. Its “comprehensive privacy program” advised users of this new tracking policy, reversing every assertion since April 2010 with a few lines inserted into a dense and lengthy terms-of-service agreement. No opt-out privacy option was offered. The truth was finally out: the bug was a feature.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 500