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.96 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.
