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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Shanti Das and Jon Ungoed-Thomas

Revealed: gambling firms secretly sharing users’ data with Facebook without permission

Facebook and gambling composite image
A selection of ads shown to the Facebook user. There is no suggestion these advertisers shared data unlawfully. Illustration: Philip Lay/Observer Design

Gambling companies are covertly tracking visitors to their websites and sending their data to Facebook’s parent company without consent in an apparent breach of data protection laws.

The information is then being used by Facebook’s owner, Meta, to profile people as gamblers and flood them with ads for casinos and betting sites, the Observer can reveal.

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