Facebook Can Track Your Browsing Even After You've Logged Out, Judge Says (theguardian.com)

A U.S. judge has dismissed nationwide litigation accusing Facebook of tracking users' internet activity even after they logged out of the social media website. From a report: The plaintiffs alleged that Facebook used the "like" buttons found on other websites to track which sites they visited, meaning that the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company could build up detailed records of their browsing history. The plaintiffs argued that this violated federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws. US district judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, dismissed the case because he said that the plaintiffs failed to show that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy or suffered any realistic economic harm or loss. Davila said that plaintiffs could have taken steps to keep their browsing histories private, for example by using the Digital Advertising Alliance's opt-out tool or using "incognito mode", and failed to show that Facebook illegally "intercepted" or eavesdropped on their communications.

Comments

Block early, block always

[nitehawk214]

Block all ads, all 3rd party scripts. All the time, with no exceptions.

If the site won't load without ads and 3rd party scripts enabled, then you don't need to see that content.

Re:Block early, block always

[adturner]

It's amazing how many anti-ad-blocking tools that websites use don't work and let you read the content unmolested if you disable JavaScript.

Your best choice

[Kohath]

As a safeguard, you should just never login to Facebook.

Re:Your best choice

[sit1963nz]

Irrelevant, Facebook still builds a profile, still tracks you and still updates its information about you.
Hell I bet they even know what you look like, all it requires is someone you know who is on Facebook to upload photos with you in it.
From there they can start doing a process of elimination.

Because they look at the sites you visit they can tell your gender (50% reduction in the unknown just with that item)
Age, race, religion, political ideology, income, and where you live are also discernible with enough data. And its not just the data they get from Facebook , they will have scraped data from phone directories and other public facing databases, they would also have paid for other information from other sources such as store loyalty cards, frequent flyer lists, etc etc etc etc etc.

They also "sell" that information,based on their data are you currently looking at going on a holiday, those web sites can then bump up the prices slightly because they too know your income, etc.

And not once have you ever had a Facebook account.

If you think simply not having a Facebook account is all it takes then flying is just the art of aiming at the ground and missing.

Re:Obviously.

[rjstanford]

It shouldn't be unreasonable to expect that logging out of Facebook caused them to stop treating that browser window as being "you" for their purposes as well as yours.

Re:Obviously.

[reboot246]

The only winning move is not to play. Seriously, I've never had a Facebook account and I pity those millions who do.

If one insists on being a Facebook minion, just use a different browser and dedicate it only to Facebook. Call it a "throwaway" browser. Then never use it for anything else but Facebook.

Re:Obviously.

[jenningsthecat]

The only winning move is not to play. Seriously, I've never had a Facebook account and I pity those millions who do.

You're probably playing to some extent, whether you realize it or not. I run No Script and an ad blocker, and I also don't have a Facebook account, so I'm probably better off than Joe Average when it comes to being tracked. I also do my best to make sure that friends and acquaintances don't post my name or picture. Even at that, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that FB knows a lot about me. If you think your abstinence from social media means you're not being tracked and commoditized, you're being naive.