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Facebook Users Complain of New Ad-Based Tracking

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the when-aren't-they-complaining dept.

Tech.Luver noted a story about facebook users complaining over ads where their shopping habits are shared with their friends as if they are endorsing products. The neatest part is that you can opt out- if you click a box that disappears after 20 seconds... wait to long, and they assume you are totally fine with it.

11 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Adversitement by ickeicke · · Score: 5, Funny

    CmdrTaco has bought a Swedish-made penis-enlargement pump!

    --
    Firehed - Unfortunately, thanks to medical breakthroughs, common sense is not as common as it once was.
  2. I guess accuracy is too much to hope for by blowdart · · Score: 5, Informative

    The neatest part is that you can opt out- if you click a box that disappears after 20 seconds... wait to long, and they assume you are totally fine with it.

    Not true; the FaceBook provides a secondary method of opting out, just like you can control lots of privacy tweaks already. There's a nice new option for "External Websites: You can edit your privacy settings for external websites sending stories to your profile." (this is not to say there aren't privacy problems with Facebook in general)

    I guess actually looking before writing a news article would have been just too hard.

    1. Re:I guess accuracy is too much to hope for by Coopjust · · Score: 5, Informative

      The main problem is that you have to opt out AFTER a site tries (or succeeds) at adding a story to your profile. If you don't respond to the popup (20 seconds OR a blocker), it assumes that you do indeed want to add the story to your profile. While you can disable it later, it might be a few hours or days before you notice if you're not a heavy Facebook user. And, you can only disable it on a site-by-site basis in this manner.

      Many nontechnical users that have hare angry. Many Slashdotters use NoScript or something to that effect.

      If you get the Blocksite plugin and block *.facebook.com/beacon/*, you can use Facebook normally and not have to worry about sites that implement it- the script that runs the beacon never gets to run, and there is no chance for the story to be sent.

    2. Re:I guess accuracy is too much to hope for by Garridan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Facebooks' policy is, and has always been, "It's better to ask forgiveness, than permission" with regards to policy. They claim to be for your privacy, but whenever they roll out a new feature that might be a privacy concern, they opt you in and don't make any sort of announcement so it can be months before you notice that you can close out such features. I used to be on facebook, and I recently closed my account because of such bullshit. A lot of my friends, my fiance, my mom, etc., acted rather put-out like I'm intentionally avoiding them or something. It's wierd how much pressure I've felt (though not from my fiance, she gets it) to re-join. News like this is just what I need to show people why I left.

  3. Re:What happens when... by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Funny
    The same thing the happens when you watch a porno movie and you have "let my msn friends see what I am watching" enabled..

    Username is currently watching "AnalBeachNuns9.avi"
  4. Re:What happens when... by Wonko+the+Sane · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then those minors will be PERMANENTLY DAMAGED FOR LIFE. Permitting minors to know of the existence of adult novelty items is a crime against humanity and should be punished by death.

  5. Re:What do you expect on a free service? by techmuse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At universities, this has replaced e-mail as a primary form of communication. I ask people I meet for an e-mail address. They tell me to look them up on facebook. At a university, you would literally be cutting out much of your social life if you never used facebook, because most of the people at the school expect that you will communicate with them through it. It's like saying that if you don't like the subscriptions and lock-ins that the cell companies require in the US, that you just don't use a cell phone. The price of ignoring it is huge.

  6. Why I quit Facebook and you should too by Ignorant+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was for precisely this reason that I recently quit Facebook. I was a member of it mainly for contacting people in college, but I've since graduated, and have found myself spending less and less time using it. Meanwhile, its infringements on my privacy have grown more and more.

    The first whiff of displeasure I got when using Facebook was when people could tag me in photos without my permission and have them display on my profile. Understandably, there's lots of pictures one would probably not want the world to see, especially during a job search. I did eventually find the option to disable this "feature", but it was many months afterwards. Similarly, I expect there's a way to disable this privacy-infringing commercial thing, but the simple fact is, it's turned on by default for users, and you have to actively figure out how to disable it.

    That's not how this kind of stuff should work. It should be opt-in, not opt-out. Am I supposed to babysit my Facebook account into the indefinite future, disabling each new feature as it comes out, hopefully in time to prevent revealing information that I didn't want revealed? No thanks. I'll just quit Facebook. I did, and you should too. The more people who put up with this kind of crap, the more emboldened they will be to keep doing it.

    --
    Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
  7. Re:Facebook users... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally, I've never used Facebook or any social-networking site, and I only know what little I read here on Slashdot. Even so, it does seem like hardly a week goes by without Facebook implementing some controversial, poorly thought out feature that pisses a lot of people off. As with any large-scale data aggregator (for that is, in effect, what Facebook has become) there's the potential to screw up and hurt people. There's a need to make money, I know, but sometimes Facebook's management seems to err on the wrong side of privacy.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  8. Opting Out by megazork · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you look at it more closely you can't opt out of the service generally. Every time a new site tries sending stuff to your news feed you have to go back to the Facebook privacy page and opt out of that particular site.

    Aside from AdBlock, you can do the following to effectively de-activate this service:
    1. Get Firefox
    2. Download and Install the BlockSite plugin for Firefox.
    3. After restarting Firefox select 'Add-ons' from the Tools menu.
    4. Click the 'Options' button on the BlockSite extension
    5. Click the 'Add' button
    6. Enter http://facebook.com/beacon/* into the input box
    7. Click 'OK'
    8. Click 'OK' again and you are good to go.

  9. Eeenstrookshoons by PixelScuba · · Score: 5, Funny

    Place dee peenoos poomp oon doo peenoos ahnd vapeedly poomp dee handool oop oont doown.