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Facebook Admits To Tracking Users, Non-Users Off-Site (theguardian.com)
Facebook said in a blog post yesterday that they tracked users and non-users across websites and apps for three main reasons: providing services directly, securing the company's own site, and "improving our products and services." The statement comes as the company faces a U.S. lawsuit over a controversial facial recognition feature launched in 2011. The Guardian reports: "When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you're logged out or don't have a Facebook account. This is because other apps and sites don't know who is using Facebook," Facebook's product management director, David Baser, wrote. "Whether it's information from apps and websites, or information you share with other people on Facebook, we want to put you in control -- and be transparent about what information Facebook has and how it is used."
But the company's transparency has still not extended to telling non-users what it knows about them -- an issue Zuckerberg also faced questions over from Congress. Asked by Texas representative Gene Green whether all information Facebook holds about a user is in the file the company offers as part of its "download your data" feature, Zuckerberg had responded he believed that to be the case. Privacy campaigner Paul-Olivier Dehaye disagreed, noting that, even as a Facebook user, he had been unable to access personal data collected through the company's off-site tracking systems. Following an official subject access request under EU law, he told MPs last month, Facebook had responded that it was unable to provide the information.
But the company's transparency has still not extended to telling non-users what it knows about them -- an issue Zuckerberg also faced questions over from Congress. Asked by Texas representative Gene Green whether all information Facebook holds about a user is in the file the company offers as part of its "download your data" feature, Zuckerberg had responded he believed that to be the case. Privacy campaigner Paul-Olivier Dehaye disagreed, noting that, even as a Facebook user, he had been unable to access personal data collected through the company's off-site tracking systems. Following an official subject access request under EU law, he told MPs last month, Facebook had responded that it was unable to provide the information.
The word is STALKING. It is illegal in the real world and should be illegal in the online world as well. I leave your site (or never use it) and you shouldn't be allowed to STALK me.
and "improving our products and services."
Of course this primarily refers to the products and services they offer to advertisers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Facebook and friends are collecting far too much data on you, more than enough to impersonate your identity.
Even if we assume that every single employee of Facebook, and all its data partners, are beyond reproach and would never stoop so low as to impersonate you to defraud government welfare, banks, or online shopping (given their CEO was alleged to have stolen Facebook in the first place, what do you think the chances of that are?)... eventually all that data is going to be involved in a breach and become available to all and sundry black hats.
I, for one, prefer "His Imperial and Royal Majesty Donald I, By the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Empire, Emperor of the Americans, King of Canada, Mediator of the Mexican Confederation, Protector of the Confederation of Panama, Co-Prince of Cuba."