Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You

kaos07 links to this ZDNet story, according to which "Researchers at software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial 'Beacon' tracking service. Responding to privacy concerns, Facebook has since moved to reassure users that it only tracks and publishes data about their purchases if they are both logged in to Facebook and have opted-in to having this information listed on their profile. But in 'extremely disconcerting' findings that directly contradict these assurances, researchers at CA's Security Advisory service have found that data about these transactions are sent to Facebook regardless of a user's actions."

Comments

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you have a Facebook account.

Shocked

[Romancer]

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Or even expect me to be mildly surprised that this is happening.

The only difference is that this is supposed to be a larger company and therefore better than the millions of smaller opt out pipe dreams out there?

Re:Shocked

[Yold]

I disabled my facebook account a few months ago because it occurred to me that someone is probably harvesting all the data that they can find off that site. Being someone who parties (too much ;-) ), I was constantly deleting tagged pictures of myself drinking off that website. I was damn glad that I did, because my BOSS at my uni went on looked at my facebook account before he hired me.

It would not suprise me if someone started offering money to purchase facebook accounts, just to harvest information, for say the price of $0.10 a friend w/ an account. I have a wild imagination, but with data mining being a really hot field, who knows what could be done with this information, it might even cost me a job in the future.

The future of privacy (or lack thereof), has me vigilant, even paranoid.

Re:Shocked

[ivan256]

I'm constantly amazed about how people will post private information in a public place (thus making it public information), and then complain about how they are being robbed of their privacy.

Of course it also amazes me how popular these social networking sites are with adults. It's understandable that kids and teenagers want to climb a social ladder of sorts, since it is human nature to attempt to achieve more than your peers, and there is little available in the environments we provide to kids other than social hierarchy to climb... But when you grow up, generally people move on to trying to get ahead in other types of accomplishments. It seems things like MySpace and Facebook have extended High School into adulthood. When you place that much value on your social network, perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that people are willing to give up their privacy to maintain it.

Re:Shocked

[brunes69]

What amazes me is that peple think that your prospective employer actually gives a crap if you party on the weekends.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don't want to work somewhere who cares about that anyway? If an employer cares what an employee is doing in their off time then they have already crossed the line IMO.

Re:Shocked

[SleepyHappyDoc]

There's a way around that. Kill your entire family, move to a different country, and insist all your new friends call you by your internet name.

Re:Shocked

[deraj123]

There's a difference between "party on the weekends" and a photo history of you making a lot of poor decisions. Think, pictures of inappropriate jokes, pictures of you not just drunk, but completely obliterated, pictures of you breaking the law, etc.

If I'm hiring somebody, I don't care if they go out drinking on the weekends (in fact, I might be concerned if they didn't occasionally), but I would probably think twice if presented with evidence of them making repeated, poor, destructive decisions.

Decision making is a trait that translates over to work.

Re:Shocked

[philspear]

Right, because that couldn't have possibly been humor.

Hell, the fact that she was applying for a job should have clued you off that it was a lie.

Not for nothing, but applying to jobs is annoying, and while we all must do it, that doesn't make it any easier. It's tedious paperwork, waiting, not getting paid, and half the time those of you who are hiring don't have the courtesy to let us know we're not getting the job. If you decided not to hire her based on something as trivial as that and that alone, you're an asshole.

Re:Shocked

[Grimbleton]

Better solution: Be boring as hell. Works for me!

Built-in

[von_rick]

The title has a built-in "In Soviet Russia joke.

Re:Built-in

[von_rick]

In_Soviet_Russia jokes are never so long.

How Dare They

[jareth780]

This is an outrage! How DARE they try and sell me things! This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me". Horsefeathers! The fact that the products I want are in stock at any given point is PROOF that they've been using my spending habits to PREDICT MY NEEDS, which goes against everything I believe in.

When I say I want a free social networking site, it's not good enough that I not be billed directly for using it. The company hosting it must be desperately trying to sustain the bandwidth and CPU time for my constant page refreshes. At no point should they be even breaking even, let alone PROFITING from their service. Information wants to be free! Down with Big Brother! Doublethink! Free as in beer! ...What else... Oh! And my cell phone bill is too high!

Re:How Dare They

[plasmacutter]

Way to one-sidedly misrepresent wholesale privacy violation as innocent altruism.

Apparently the telecom domestic spying scandal has not reached your part of the world?

In these times, companies have as much or more assets and power available to them than many of the world's nations, and allowing the wholesale gathering of information on individuals by private firms under the red herring of "private property" will lead to the exact same kind of oppression as allowing the government to do it under the red herring of "national security".

There are other ways to better serve me without having to identify me personally. Inventory tracking has been done successfully at the branch level for a century in its current form, and if they don't carry something, speaking to a manager will often get results.

There is a difference between profiting from advertising, and profiteering from spying on me and selling that data to telemarketers, government agencies, and other shady organizations.

Re:How Dare They

[Chris Burke]

This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me". Horsefeathers! The fact that the products I want are in stock at any given point is PROOF that they've been using my spending habits to PREDICT MY NEEDS, which goes against everything I believe in.

That's clearly not true, because I've been to Safeway plenty of times and not ONCE have they offered me a blowjob.

Unsubscribe

[kellyb9]

I just wish I could delete my facebook account. It's actually close to impossible, first you have to delete all your information (wall posts, friends, etc.), and then they'll delete your account. Very, very time consuming. But I doubt any of that info is REALLY gone.

Mark Zuckerberg

[NoPantsJim]

I've often thought about the various people who have made a fortune or are about to make a fortune from online properties.

Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose, the Flickr people, etc.

Usually I think to myself, that's awesome that these people were able to work hard and see their vision to the end and make a living from it.

When I think of Zuckerberg, I think the exact opposite. Fuck that guy. I've always felt like he sleezed his way to where he is, and stories like this only reinforce that opinion.

(prepared to be modded troll...)

Re:What if it's an un-used email?

[AndGodSed]

With Facebook's protection of minors... I wonder if them tracking the habits of minors could get them in trouble...

This is insightful too

[philspear]

They also can only track you if you use a computer!

Re:Well What ROYALLY pissed me off earlier

[davidsyes]

What might have royally pissed off others was that when facebook asked for the new member's valid email address, it implied or outright expected them to provide to the f/b interface the VALID PASSWORD OF THE VALID EMAIL ACCOUNT.

This royally inFURIATED me. All they needed to say was Give us your valid email of choice, and reply within 5 minutes of receiving it and supply the code we give you, or you'll have to redo this and still try within 5 minutes to validate yourself.

They had NO f*cking business structuring it in such a way that MILLIONS of users would blindly or hopelessly supply their gmail, yahoo, msn, and/or other passwords through a facebook conduit.

Can you IMAGINE how much snooping could be done if facebook were compelled by law or court order to submit subscribtion/memberhship application logs to various agencies that don't want to actually leave traces of intel-snooping? All they have to do is notice whether or not the user is online or not, then log in as them, quickly look at non-viewable things, then log out. Only if friends and bots are somehow tracking friends login/logout activity can anyone be tipped off that something might be amiss.

Even without the conspiracy theory stuff, facebook should NEVER have culled or duped people into giving facebook their other account's passwords, nevermind the fact that there are other means by which other parties could steal or surreptitiously obtain a targeted user's password.

I cannot remember what I did to foil that frackin' attempt, but I think I did foil it.