We didn’t click ‘consent’ on any gambling website. So how did Facebook know where we’d been?
In an experiment, they surfed sites without making a wager or agreeing to data sharing. Our Meta feed filled up with betting ads Revealed: gambling firms secretly sharing users’ data with Facebook without permission
A Facebook user logs into their account and is bombarded with dozens of gambling ads. The promotions for online casinos and betting sites offer free spins, “bet boosts”, discounts and bonuses.
But the person has never placed a bet or played a game on a gambling site before – let alone consented to being targeted. How can that happen?
The Observer conducted an experiment to find out how potential gambling customers are being tracked, profiled and targeted online.
To do this, we visited 150 gambling websites run by companies with licences to operate in the UK. First, we took a note of whether the website asked for consent to use data for marketing purposes. Then, without clicking to “agree” or “decline” the use of any data, we looked at the network traffic.
By doing this – and using an official Meta application called Pixel Helper – we were able to see a record of the data being shared with Facebook’s parent company, Meta.
In many cases, no data was shared. But in about a third of cases, the testing found that a tracking tool called Meta Pixel had been embedded into the website – and was being triggered automatically upon loading the webpage. This was sending a report to Facebook about which webpages we had visited, linked to a unique user ID.
In some cases, Facebook was also sent data on which buttons we had clicked, and other browsing activity. One site told Facebook when we clicked a button indicating we might place a bet on the Everton v Liverpool match scheduled for next week. Another told Meta that we had clicked to view a promotion for 100 free spins.
At no point did we ever click to “agree” or “accept” the use of our data for marketing – or consent to it being shared. But when we logged back into Facebook a few days later, the feed was full of gambling ads.
These ads were from a range of brands – including many whose own data-sharing practices had not broken any rules. This is because once data is shared with Meta, it is ingested into its targeted ads system and is used to profile people based on the things Meta thinks they like.
That means Meta can then sell ads to companies wanting to target a particular audience – whether that is pet owners, women seeking fertility treatment, people who love Taylor Swift, or potential gambling customers.
Advertisers can also target potential new customers that Meta thinks will be interested in their brand, including “lookalike” customers who have been profiled by the social media giant as being similar to their existing customers based on things such as their demographic characteristics, interests and behaviour.
In the Observer’s testing, the Facebook user had also been profiled as someone interested in “real money gaming”, according to account records – so it’s possible that ads could have appeared as a result of targeting in this way.
The investigation raises serious questions for regulators about how they are monitoring marketing practices of this sort.
During the testing, we noticed that many of the gambling sites sharing data unlawfully had automatic opt-in consent processes that assume people are happy for their data to be shared based on the mere fact that they are using the website. One consent banner read: “We use cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you continue to use this website we assume you are OK with this.”
This appears to be in breach of data protection regulations. The ICO says consent must be both “unambiguous and affirmative”, and that relying on pre-ticked boxes or a failure to opt out is insufficient. Yet the practice is widespread.
There are also questions about the role of Meta – which profits from selling ads using data transmitted to it, even in cases where it was shared unlawfully.
We have previously written about how other organisations – such as police forces, NHS trusts and a political party – misused Meta Pixel to track website users. In some cases they shared data with Meta on sensitive things such as health problems and reporting crimes. But the barrage of gambling ads that were served on Facebook as a result of this testing was far more intense than anything we had seen before.
Heather Wardle, professor of gambling research at the University of Glasgow, said the “untamed marketing” was “hugely risky”. “If you are already experiencing difficulties from gambling, it is likely to make you gamble more,” she says.
The Freedom Scientific training team offers ongoing opportunities for you to join us in live training sessions and advance your skills. We’re excited to announce our jam-packed February training sc…
Learn how JAWS scripting improves accessibility in workplace software, helping screen reader users navigate digital tools efficiently and independently.
Die seltsame Erblindung cartoons.guido-kuehn.de/die-se… Nach konservativen Polizeiangaben waren bislang nach der versuchten Erpressung von Merz mit der AfD spontan über 1.3 Millione…
81,7 Terabyte geklaute #Bücher von Piraterie-Seiten per Torrent runtergeladen, um Metas #KI zu trainieren. Auf Anweisung von #Zuckerberg persönlich. Ich sehe absolut keinen Grund, warum Autor:innen sich noch auf #Facebook, #Instagram oder #WhatsApp rumtreiben sollten. Und vor allem sehe ich keinen Grund, warum sie es auch noch verteidigen sollten. Aber was tippe ich mir die Finger fusselig? Jaja, ich weiß: #MythosReichweite
Nějak se dostalo do módy označovat Evropu za selhávající uzel byrokracie a regulace, kde se nikomu nechce inovovat nebo pracovat a hrstka zbylých úspěšných je socialisticky vyssávána těmi neúspěšnými. Když se ale (ze své velmi omezené perspektivy) dívám kolem po světě, tak snad s výjimkou Kanady nevidím zemi, která by mohla s Evropou soutěžit ve kvalitě života. Evropa má řadu problémů a potřebuje práci, ale je to jedno z nejúspěšnějších uspořádání světa. Nenechme si to vymluvit.
@MichalJanda já si naopak myslím, že je podstatně delší. To je prostě dlouhodobý rys německy mluvícího prostoru, který EU pořád primárně ovlivňuje. Němci mají a vždycky měli regulace úplně na všechno. Když jsme tam před 15 lety dělali konferenci, hleděl jsem na to, že mají nařízení i na to, že na zemi nemohly být kabely. Všude přes ně musely být chráničky, aby o ten kabel náhodou někdo nezakopl. Dnes mají třeba omezení i na to, že zadní světlo na kole nesmí blikat.
A přesto Němci přes tuto odvěkou lásku k regulacím dokázali udělat několik hospodářských zázraků a ještě před 10 lety byli dáváni za vzor. Přijde mi, že se to vždycky začne vytahovat, když se ekonomice nedaří, ale takový velký faktor to určitě není. Německo bylo před 10 lety podobně regulované jako nyní.
Podobně je to s drahými energiemi. Ano, jsou podniky, pro které je to zásadní nákladová položka a každé zvýšení pro ně může být likvidační, ale pak člověk čte nářky od firem, pro které to ve výsledovce znamená marginální změnu. Přitom asijské ekonomiky mají dlouhodobě dražší energie než my a nevypadá to, že by je to v růstu nějak omezovalo. Jižní Korea svůj hospodářský zázrak dokázala s průměrnou cenou plynu 150 eur. My jsme na kolika, třetině? A břečíme, jak je Evropa kvůli tomu nekonkurenceschopná. Realita je mnohem složitější a házet všechno na regulace a drahé energie je prostě jen pohodlná zkratka.
@sesivany Mně přijde že se to zvrtlo v okamžiku kdy si ty regulace přestali řídit Němci sami. Neříkám že všechno, ale minimálně část je řešení blbostí (víčka) a ignorují se ty složitější (proč máme v EU pořád roaming? Různé zásuvky? Různé dopravní předpisy?).
Souhlasím, na druhou stranu mi přijde, že třeba z hlediska zaměstnanosti, bezpečnosti nebo dostupnosti zdravotní péče je na tom ČR a zejména Praha podstatně lépe než většina Evropy. Z toho důvodu budu v Praze akceptovat i poměrně vysokou cenu za nový byt (pokud mi dá banka 🟢). Nevýhodou je, že nemám kam emigrovat, kdyby se to tady nějak moc rozbilo 😕
Veřejná zdravotní péče je velmi nadstandardní, má to ale za následek absenci skutečně špičkové soukromé péče. V naprosté většině případů se tady o tebe postarají lépe než veřejné zdravotnictví jinde, ale jakmile potřebuješ něco mimo veřejný systém, jinde to bude lepší.
Bezpečnost není za mě jenom riziko přepadení nebo vraždy, ale i třeba kapsářství nebo srážky autem. Nikde jinde v Evropě jsem nemusel pořád hlídat, jestli mě někdo nesejme, jako u nás.
@Jann @marekzprahy Ty jo, s tou ne-bezpecnosti v doprave me to docela sokovalo. Ja pozoruju za poslednich par let zhorseni (pro chodce), ale ani zdaleka nejsme na urovni jizni Italie nebo Londyna. Tam je to pri prechazeni ulice fakt peklo, ale vsichni s tim tak nejak pocitaji.
@mwenisch @marekzprahy V jižní Itálii jsem nebyl, Británie navíc (už) není v Unii. Já neříkám, že to je nehorší na světě, ale spíš mě šokovalo, jak daleko pred námi je vůči chodcům a cyklistům značná část východní Evropy. Dávám jen subjektivní srovnání z nějakých zkušeností, nic víc. Navíc trochu (to už opravdu hodně z vody) pozoruji trendy, které jsou spíš protichůdné.
It's not perfect, but it's quite usable, you can sync encrypted notes up to a server and use it anywhere, like on your phone, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. It has collaboration as well, so you can share an entire notebook and work on things together. It has around 200 official plugins, like a journal mode, you can make notes public so people can read it, and a lot of cool things that just work out of the box. It can send you native notifications as well from a todo list.
Yeah it's nice. I got the basic cloud plan with edu discount cuz I'm not confident enough in my hosting skills but once that subscription expires, which won't be that soon, I might also try selfhosting.
It recently became accessible, yes. I tried it a year or two ago and it was unusable but there has been a lot of work put into it and now it has everything I ever need, including templates which none of the notetaking apps had so far.
It's defenitly! The only thing I've considered as a bit annoying so far is the settings dialog on windows, because whenever I switch tabs its telling me some randomm setting from the task, like I switch to general and NVDA is already saying something about English US even though I haven't even moved to that languages list but I was to lazy to report and no idea how to properly formulate that and it doesn't make it unusable or something so heh. The general experience is fine. Also on android and I appriciate that because my previous app was ok on windows but horrible on mobile.
Managed to get it to build on ARM since it was missing a dependency, also half of the environment variables are missing from the .envSample, but for the most part it's quite straightforward. Let me know if you need some help in the future, it's really worth it just for the collaboration part alone.
Diesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks schaffen Politiker gerade die #Barmherzigkeit ab. Das hat mich veranlasst, noch einmal das Gleichnis vom barmherzigen #Samariter zu lesen. Es ist einfach zu verstehen, aber offenbar nicht für alle leicht zu akzeptieren. horstheller.wordpress.com/2025… #Trump #Merz
„Have Mercy, Mr President!“ Das sagte die mutige Bischöfin Anfang Januar 2025 im Gottesdienst an den amerikanischen Präsidenten gerichtet. Habe Erbarmen! Mr President schaute die Predigerin mit fin…
I would love to know the reasoning behind that. My wife and I use Nebraska as a codeword for some parental interactions, a reference to the movie with the same name.
"Nebraska" comes from the Omaha name for the Platte River, meaning "flat water." So an animal associated with the river would be appropriate. The whooping crane comes to mind, and it's an endangered species if that's of interest.
the armadillo is actually appropriate in that it can curl up, also reflects your efforts in making the library/program robust/secure. It would give the right impression in that sense. I think you can make those as pretty cute little animals as well.
Actually, now that I think about it .. reliable, robust, trustworthy operation is (has become) kind of a corner stone, isn't it?
Something basic and useful, that can also be twisted into completely different tools… 🤔 I know: a paperclip! Yeah, the mascot should be a talking paperclip with googly eyes. It could be named Paperclippy, or something like that. 😇
girl is the only one that rhymes with curl, so I think the mascot has got to be 'the curl girl' and the anthem should be MTC Saga by DJ Serl (also rhymes with curl).
@FreakyFwoof @jscholes Yeah, I conveniently located myself to Paris for this weekend. But the worry, but russia flips the switch early, leaving Estonia without power was real. Power generator sales were soaring in january.
@jakobrosin @FreakyFwoof @jscholes I hope Estonia will soon switch to other energy sources. Syncing with the European energy network is a good first step. I am sort of surprised that Estonia still depends on Russia in anything. Good move re Paris.
@vick21 @FreakyFwoof @jscholes I'm honestly surprised that our border to russia is still open. Have no idea why, while everyone else has had a clear decision on it.
For a protocol that's often accused of accumulating vast amounts of metadata, it's surprisingly difficult to determine how many people use #XMPP and which clients they prefer.
The thing is: a network of federating #XMPP servers doesn't accumulate #metadata, it creates a lot of distributed points where the metadata of that point can be intercepted. A little metadata when you only observe the server, a bit more when you control the server. One server is quite easy to analyse. But, because of its distributed nature, observing all of the network is close to impossible.
All my life I have been listening to the excuse, that the US had to be flooded with weapons, because if a dictator ever came to power, these weapons were the guarantee that the people could defend the US against the dictator.
OpenAI changes ChatGPT o3-mini to work more like DeepSeek-R1, but faces backlash from users | Tech Radar "...Some other users responded by suggesting that OpenAI was simply responding to the threat offered by the new DeepSeek by copying the way it presented the reasoning chain in its R1 model. “Finally DeepSeek changing the O-World for us,” replied ..." techradar.com/computing/artifi…
GeForce RTX 5090 fails to topple RTX 4090 in GPU compute benchmark while RTX 5080 struggles against RTX 4070 Ti | Notebook Check "The GeForce RTX 5090 has failed to overtake its predecessor in a GPU compute benchmark on the well-known PassMark database site. ..." notebookcheck.net/GeForce-RTX-…
The GeForce RTX 5090 has failed to overtake its predecessor in a GPU compute benchmark on the well-known PassMark database site. The RTX 5080 suffered a similar fate, with the card barely managing to beat out the RTX 4070 Ti.
Just to clear the air before people start talking crap. Yes, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department just left my house over something that I did in self-defense about two months ago. I didn’t lie to them, and I told them everything about what happened that night. Now I have to turn myself in next week. No point in lying and making things worse. To those people I have told, which were very few, you know how badly I messed up and what I did. It's something I knew I shouldn't have done, but now I have to face the consequences of my actions. If I could turn back time, I would. I'm facing 2-7 years in prison, but hopefully they will go easy on me since I’m going in voluntarily. I promise I have learned from my mistakes and when I come home, I will pursue my dreams and I promise to get better especially since this is not real... You should post this and see how many people actually read it to the end before they fall for it.
📧 “Still using an email from your internet provider? Bad idea. If you leave, your email is gone. Get a Gmail or Outlook account—it’s future-proof!" 👉 More at bit.ly/4aE4PrM
Get ready to have your tech world rocked every week with Steven Scott and Shaun Preece on Double Tap! These guys are the ultimate duo - mixing humor, passion, and top-notch expertise to keep you in the loop with the latest in assistive tech for blind…
@Bruce I recently read that for certain episodes of Baby Snooks, Alan Reed was one of the actors who played Daddy. I never knew this. Do any of those episodes exist?
There's so much I don't know, so much I don't understand. The older I get, the more I realize that the amount of things I actually do know is a whole heck of a lot less than what I thought. It highlights my arrogance in thinking that I was brighter than I am. I suck.
Resurrection of the Daleks first aired 41 years ago on this day in 1984. This action-packed 5th Doctor story from the 21st season saw the return of the Daleks and Davros. This exciting adventure was also Janet Fielding’s swansong as Tegan. #DoctorWho
That was a great episode and the voices of the Daleks were some of the best from the classic series. One thing about that story that always confuses me is when Davros is being told about the Movellan war. At one point, he says something like, "two giant supercomputers warring against one another not able to outhink each other? Fascinating! If only I had been there." But he was there and dealt with that very problem in "Destiny" so why is he reacting like that and why would the writers not have acknowledged this?
@DavidGoldfield Resurrection of the Daleks sort of did for the Daleks in the 80's what Earthshock did for the Cybermen. It totally revamped thei Daleks for a new era, and also put all the continuity of the Daleks into some semblance of order. Yes, it's odd Davros said that as he was present to a degree initially (Destiny of the Daleks), I guess he was speaking rhetorically as he was frozen and imprisoned for much of the time the Daleks war with the Movellans was taking place?
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Mikołaj Hołysz
in reply to Pablo Martini (Geezer) • • •