May we have your consent?
The Globe and Mail believes in providing transparency about what we do. So before this extension will do anything, please take a minute to understand what the extension does.

What the extension does
The extension places a content script on every Facebook page you visit. That script scans for ads, which it then stores on your computer. These ads are also sent to The Globe and Mail to support research and journalism

Information we will receive
Our server will receive clean, identifier-free HTML of the ads, the ads’ Facebook identifier number and demographic targeting parameters (e.g., people ages 18 and over residing in the US), their classification (Political or Non-Political), and your browser’s language setting. We have otherwise made every effort to ensure the extension will not collect data that could be used to identify you individually.

How you can help
Whenever you feel like supporting our mission, you can click on the extension icon on your browser bar and a pop-up window will appear. It will contain all the ads saved on your computer. You can “teach” the extension by classifying the ads as either Political or Not Political.

What we will do with the information
We will feed the information to our algorithm to help it learn to identify political ads. We will also send you political ads that you have not already seen, but that others have reported to us. When you want to know what ads others are seeing, you can click on the “Ads Others are Seeing” icon on your browser to receive a batch of ads from our server. The extension will then compare those to the ads stored locally on your computer and show you only the ads you haven't already seen. We will never receive information about which ads have or have not been seen by you personally.

What if I want to withdraw my consent?
By installing the plug-in, I confirm that the data mentioned above, as well as my categorization of advertisements as political, may be used in the context of this project.

You can stop participating in this project at any time by uninstalling the extension (Here are instructions for disabling extensions in Chrome and Firefox.) On deactivation or uninstallation of the plug-in, no further data will be sent.

Questions, concerns or suggestions? Please contact us at: politicalads@globeandmail.com.