How firms you have never interacted with can target your Facebook

Advertisers are seemingly able to access accounts with no input from the user

On one of Facebook's myriad setting screens, a place where few dare tread, is a list of places you've probably never heard of, all of whom insist that they know you. It's emblematic of the data protection issues Facebook is struggling to address in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, of the fact that these problems spread far beyond Facebook, and of the easy solutions the company could take if only it had the courage.

This list is the collection of "advertisers you've interacted with". You can find it halfway down your ad preferences screen, below a list of algorithmically suggested topics that Facebook thinks you're interested in (if you're a heavy user, these may be scarily accurate; if you're not, they'll likely be hilariously off).