Although it is breaking news that Facebook uses your profile to specialize adds that suit your personal interests, many people do not realize just how specialized they truly are. I became alarmed at what I found after taking a deeper look into these mysterious adds.

Rob Goldman, Facebook’s VP for ads released a blog post in which he explained how the Facebook ads are not supposed to be the Facebook experience, but they are how Facebook makes money to keep the site running. The way Goldman explains the how the ads reach out to people is a watered down version of the reality.

He equates a cycling store in Atlanta as a way for small local businesses to reach out to people with in interest in biking. This example seems innocent – because it is. But, what Goldman does not advertise is how they give companies the option to make their ad targeting much more specific that they let on.

“We already have been seeing the results of negative segmentation we saw in the past before, like when cigarette companies were targeting low-income people,” says Juan Mundel, a professor at DePaul University who has studied Facebook advertising.

Facebook has access to everything that you post on your pages, all of your likes, all of your photos, status updates, etc. This makes it so companies in partner with Facebook can spend less money advertising to a big group of people, and only advertise to a group of people that they know might be interested in their product.

Just like the cigarette ads, Facebook can target vulnerable groups of people for their advertisements.  One example of this could be something such as diet pills. If they notice that you have clicked on healthy foods or workout posts, then they could have companies that sell diet pills only advertise to groups of people like this.

You can choose to block out ads relating to certain subjects like alcohol or kids. It is still not known how Facebook collects information from your page like your marital status or if you life at home or not.