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Facebook Beacon Privacy Issues Worse Than Previously Thought?
An anonymous reader writes "Further developments in the Facebook Beacon affair ... According to PC World, a Computer Associates researcher claims that Beacon, when installed on participating sites, is sending data about users' activity back to Facebook, even when a user is logged out of Facebook - despite Facebook's claims to the contrary."
no privacy OFF a social networking site.. you should be shocked. repeatedly.
I'm sure Facebook would never monitor my activity on other si
It looks like you're writing a comment criticising Facebook! Would you like to:
- Delete the comment
- Tell everyone how great Facebook is?
- Add some more useless junk to your Facebook profile?
- Spam all your friends with a picture of a 'cute' travelling bear?
Actually, you can't delete a Facebook account, only deactivate it. After reading the PC World article a couple days ago, I tried to delete mine, and was told that I could log back in any time and it would be ready and waiting for me. Something tells me they don't stop mining data from other sites just because you've deactivated the account, when they're not even willing to delete your favorite brand of toilet paper from your profile. I wiped every bit of information about me by hand, aside from my wall posts, which were simply too numerous.
Basically, it tells you to go to addons.mozilla.org, find blocksite, install, add "http*://*facebook.com/beacon/* to blocksite, and gold. Should work in AdBlock/ABP too, PeerGuardian, or whatnot.
Google stopped becoming a search engine and is now an advertising company that does a bit of searching on the side. Same will happen to Facebook. You might use it as a social networking site but it WILL become more concerned with getting ads on screen.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
You're going to seriously tell me that when all these people joined FB of their own volition that they wanted their web browsing habits to be tracked, stored, and probably acted on in some fashion? I think it's more likely that they joined so they could hook up with their friends...you know, kind of like what FB was actually about. The subsequent invasion of privacy, tracking and collation of personal habits certainly IS very 'big brotherish' if you want to participate in modern society in any meaningful form. Or you could sever all ties to the internet, "opt-out" and go and live under a rock, is that the choice that what you call 'capitalism' has given us?
lemonade was a popular drink and it still is
Advertisements that appear on Facebook are sometimes delivered (or "served") directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens. These third party advertisers may also download cookies to your computer, or use other technologies such as JavaScript and "web beacons" (also known as "1x1 gifs") to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content.
See original here.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
It doesn't- and can't- address the far more serious underlying cause. Namely that Facebook and the other companies involved are clearly totally contemptuous of their users' privacy and quite happy to screw them over in the name of a few quick bucks. And then hide this behind a weaselish and unclear "opt-in-by-default" agreement. (Yes, it's acceptable for them to make money from a free website; no, it's absolutely *not* acceptable for them to do it in this way).
Frankly, I'm glad I don't use Facebook. At one stage I may have believed that it was possibe to balance the invasion one's privacy by controlling what appeared on their page- and then some low-down **** like this comes along. It's one thing to have your Facebook information publicly available, quite another to have your activities on apparently unrelated sites made public.
I wouldn't touch Facebook with a ******* barge pole now. Your fix may work on the current problem, but what happens when the next moneygrabbing exploit comes along? What happens when these assholes figure out a totally different way to use the information they already have on you?
Seriously, fuck that, and fuck Facebook. Their behaviour was already unacceptable- regardless of how they snuck it into the legal agreement. With this latest news on top, I seriously hope that this marks a turning point in Facebook's fortunes. Joe Public isn't as concerned about his privacy as he should be, but when it comes to blabbing about his Christmas present purchases without his knowledge, it puts it in more concrete terms.
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