Facebook Begins Tracking Non-Users Around the Internet (theverge.com)

Amar Toor, reporting for The Verge: Facebook will now display ads to web users who are not members of its social network, the company announced Thursday, in a bid to significantly expand its online ad network. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Facebook will use cookies, "like" buttons, and other plug-ins embedded on third-party sites to track members and non-members alike (Editor's note: link swapped with a non-paywall source). The company says it will be able to better target non-Facebook users and serve relevant ads to them, though its practices have come under criticism from regulators in Europe over privacy concerns. Facebook began displaying a banner notification at the top of its News Feed for users in Europe today, alerting them to its use of cookies as mandated under an EU directive.Mark Wilson of BetaNews adds that Facebook has outlined these changes in its cookies policy page. As part of which, the company is now allowing Facebook users to opt-out of the ad scheme by making changes to their Facebook settings. For users that don't have a Facebook account, they can opt-out through Digital Advertising Alliance in the United States and Canada, and the European Interactive Digital Adverting Alliance in Europe.

Comments

"Begins?"

[Anonymous Coward]

As anyone who's used RequestPolicy, NoScript or uBlock could tell you: any page with a Facebook like button is a tracker. Why, we even had an article about this... six years ago.

Re:"Begins?"

[bhcompy]

And NoScript takes care of this problem pretty well.

Re:"Begins?"

[Sir_Eptishous]

Agreed that this isn't new, more like describing another star system taken over by the Empire...
The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers

Unfortunately, we don't have any Jedi to get us out of this one.

Re:"Begins?"

[Dins]

I recently blocked the domain facebook.com in my hosts file. Noscript, uBlock, and Privacy Badger are likely more useful, but it sure felt good to do.

Re: "Begins?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget their content delivery network

Re:"Begins?"

[GameboyRMH]

"Begins" should be read as "now admits it is"

Opt Out Policy?

[Archangel Michael]

Fuck YOU Facebook.

So, to Opt out of being tracked by you, I have to go to yet another place (which is not obvious) and sign up to not be tracked. Fuck you world which allows this shit to be acceptable.

1) Use Tor
2) Use Incognito Mode
3) Time to block cookies, delete cookies, and so on.

http://www.howtogeek.com/63721...

Did I mention ... FUCK YOU FACEBOOK!

Re:Opt Out Policy?

[Luthair]

Not really different than any other advertising network. Just use an ad blocker and block the facebook domains for third party.

Re:Opt Out Policy?

[mlw4428]

So you're mad because sites that provide free content let Facebook pay for the content YOU decide to consume and Facebook makes that money by tracking what you do (again on sites that YOU choose to go to) and selling adspace to advertisers they think you will like? How entitled and spoiled you people are. You just have to throw on an extension or two. In exchange you get to look at someone else's work (that they're expecting to get paid for) for free. This is like your being a freeloading bum who is being told that to keep pitching your tent in someone else's back yard, that you have to at least bury your shit in a hole and not take a dump on their grill. Boo-hoo. Don't browse the web or only go to those "marvelous" open source content pages that suck (or Wikipedia who will spam you for weeks asking for donations).

sick, sad, world

[Thud457]

Whatever happened to their motto "don't be evil"?

Oh. wait, that wasn't them.

Re:sick, sad, world

[Salgak1]

Really. Although, more and more, I'm thinking Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, and all the rest, have started using "50 Shades of Grey" as the basis of their management philosophy. . .

We've become Idiocracy

[Sir_Eptishous]

When the wealth created by companies like Google, and FB(eventually?) is based upon advertising.
Advertising?!? Really?

Industrial Age
Information Age
Advertising Age

Privacy Badger

[ssam]

Everyone here is already using Privacy Badger ( https://www.eff.org/privacybad... ) or similar right?

Re:Digital Advertising Alliance

[AmiMoJo]

Don't bother, it's a trap. The "opt out" works by setting a cookie on your computer. If you care at all about stopping tracking, you already block such cookies anyway.

Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin are much, much more effective. Since they can't offer a way to opt in, the nuke-it-from-orbit option is the only one left.

Re:I use Ublock Origin

[AmiMoJo]

Try enabling the Easy Privacy list in the uBlock options, that will nuke it. I also recommend installing Privacy Badger along side uBlock for the best possible protection from stalkers.

Re:Digital Advertising Alliance

[DarkOx]

I have found the best approach is to setup squid + sslbump + privoxy. The last of which can mutilate all cookies to be session cookies. This effectively prevents lots of the trackers from functioning. I also always have my user agent molested to be a recent version of chrome on Windows 8 64 ( i have to adjust periodically). That way the user agent is dead common and they can't track individual devices behind my NAT as easily. I have a cron job that runs to release the DHCP lease from my ISP every night and gets a new address. I do get a different IP almost every day that way.

Re:Digital Advertising Alliance

[JackieBrown]

Sounds like you take allot of enjoyment browsing the web - or at least preparing to be able to browse the web.

Re:Digital Advertising Alliance

[Sloppy]

Anything worth doing, is worth doing while geekily obsessing over all the details.