Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit – even when they have logged out. In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites. The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake – that software automatically downloaded to users’ computers when they logged in to Facebook ‘inadvertently’ sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.
Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case. In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers – data that could be worth billions when creating ‘targeted’ advertising based on the sites users visit. The website’s practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and have provoked a furious response across the internet. Facebook claims to have ‘fixed’ the issue – and ‘thanked’ Mr Cubrilovic for pointing it out – while simultaneously claiming that it wasn’t really an issue in the first place. On technology blog CNET, however, users were outraged at what was going on.
According to U.S. reports Facebook has recently set up its own Political Action Committee, an American term for a lobbying outfit to get its views heard on Capitol Hill. So far this year it has already spent £352,000 on lobbying, already ahead of last year’s total of £224,000.
In other scams…OnStar has “supposedly” backed off from it’s tracking for profit business model due to unpopular demand.
OnStar kills plan to track ex-subscribers
“Overton Window”. They do these extreme actions and than back out, not to truly acceptable behavior but to more tracking than before. Just now we feel as we fought it back to the normal. Ex. it should be unacceptable for OnStar to track SUBSCRIBERS in order to sell data to third party. User is one who have paid for the device and for service. All what we should accept from such company is to exclusively serve us. No side business via TOS should be acceptable.
I cannot BELIEVE people still use Facebook after all the shit that’s been revealed about them.
C’mon people, wise up and delete (if you can! hah!) your facebook account. That is, unless you enjoy your ever move tracked and you enjoy being “sold” as a product.
I agree with pedro. Dumbasses.
Facebook has too much history of blatantly exploiting user data without permission to even begin to believe that they were tracking logged off users by “mistake”.
From what I can tell, Facebook has always operated on the “It is waaaay easier to ass rape your users and then claim incompetence when too many of them scream ‘rape’ than to ask for permission first.”
Do what we say we won’t do because doing what we say is what we do.
But it’s OK when Google does this? Really?
#3,
The people here are not the dumb asses you need to address. The sheeple masses don’t read well enough to comprehend this site.
I don’t much care that I’m being tracked, that’s how all this Internet stuff works after all.
These days though FB is looking more like MySpace compared to Google+.
#8,
most of the people here are going to vote R or D in the next election, that does indeed give them sheeple status.
#10,
Since I don’t blindly vote D or R, that sheeple concept didn’t occur to me.
Thanks!
After the dust settles, I’m happy to be tracked without my permission. I find the popup ads that get thru my anti-scripting and ad block software are much more interesting.
Consumer Protection in America?====zilch.
Same as it ever was.
Sigh, I can’t get my nieces and nephews to get off Facebook, they’re addicted! No matter what you tell them or what they read they won’t ever leave that sht, it’s like they’re becoming Apple zombies! Grr…
Facebook is the favorite social media of the FBI and CIA.
Lucky for me, I never understood Facebook, or the purpose of it.
#15–Facts On/Facts Off/But Mostly Off==you say: “Lucky for me, I never understood Facebook, or the purpose of it.” /// I can understand that. Combining news with photographs is so very advante guard. Where are you in your appreciation of media these days beyond getting the right change for the coffee?
Track your websites, bah!
The scary shit is the Facebook facial recognition system that can tag you in photos automatically. It’s an opt-out system, naturally.
But seriously…is this some mechanism of the FB plug-in for Firefox, or what?
An alternative take on the issue:
# User-defined rules.
Site facebook.com *.facebook.com fbcdn.net *.fbcdn.net
Accept from facebook.com *.facebook.com
Deny
The only tracker I approve of involves torrents. 🙂
If this wasn’t what you were expecting you are more than slightly naive.
Have a nice day and God bless.
I downloaded a large generic host file to block ad sites and I almost never see ads anymore. Fox News features don’t work, but that ain’t so bad. Did a local Mom still learn 1 dieting secret?
And it’s OK not to be on Facebook, but with their facial recognition tech they know who you are anyway.
I wish my mistakes were that profitable.
Face-Holes!!!