Megan Borovicka joined Facebook in 2013 and then forgot she even had an account. But Facebook never forgot about her.

"It`s a strange feeling," Borovicka told me, after I showed her what Facebook knew about her. She paused looking at a string of shopping data from one Christmas when she was stuck with a sick kid while her husband went to Macy`s. "Why do they need to know that?" she said. "I thought if I`m not using Facebook, I wouldn`t be in its orbit."

Facebook has become too big to escape. We`re rightly becoming more skeptical of Big Tech monopolies, and that should include the sheer volume of data they collect.

Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission filed an updated antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, arguing the company needs to be broken up. Some 69 percent of American adults now have Facebook accounts, according to Pew Research. The next most popular social network, Instagram, is also owned by Facebook. So are messaging services WhatsApp and Messenger.

Facebook may be free, but you pay for it with your privacy. And Facebook keeps raising the price.

How does Facebook`s bigness hurt you and me? As Borovicka and I learned, Facebook takes a toll on your privacy — but perhaps not in the way you expect. It isn`t just the Facebook app that`s gobbling up your information. Facebook is so big, it has convinced millions of other businesses, apps and websites to also snoop on its behalf. Even when you`re not actively using Facebook. Even when you`re not online. Even, perhaps, if you`ve never had a Facebook account.

Here`s how it works: Facebook provides its business partners tracking software they embed in apps, websites and loyalty programs. Any business or group that needs to do digital advertising has little choice but to feed your activities into Facebook`s vacuum: your grocer, politicians and, yes, even the paywall page for this newspaper`s website. Behind the scenes, Facebook takes in this data and tries to match it up to your account. It sits under your name in a part of your profile your friends can`t see, but Facebook uses to shape your experience online.

Among the 100 most popular smartphone apps, you can find Facebook software in 61 of them, app research firm Sensor Tower told me. Facebook also has trackers in about 25 percent of websites, according to privacy software maker Ghostery.