Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You

News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:03 PM EDT

Article Source: Slashdot

technology, facebook, facebook-spying, facebook-tracking-users, spying-on-users

"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."

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Public Discussion (2)

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This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user has on the current conversation. The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera). Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the left, in their corresponding group. Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.

1.5

{"commentId":2218637,"authorDomain":"winsomecowboy"}

winsomecowboy

IMO facebooks primary purpose is to aggregate users datapoints.

{"commentId":2218637,"threadId":"314911","contentId":"1674995","authorDomain":"winsomecowboy"}

1 vote

#1 - Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:04 PM EDT

{"commentId":2218924,"authorDomain":"jaawalla"}

Jace

Sadly, that's what it has become. I miss the days when it was a fun way to interact with college friends. Nowadays facebook is all about revenue sources and privacy invasion.

{"commentId":2218924,"threadId":"314911","contentId":"1674995","authorDomain":"jaawalla"}

1 vote

#1.1 - Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:45 PM EDT

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WINSOMECOWBOY

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Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You

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