Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You

kaos07 links to this ZDNet story, according to which "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."

Well

Only if you have a Facebook account.

Re:Well

Facebook uses an email address as your login, but I'm guessing they probably have some sort of cookie thing set up as well.

Eratum

TFA's source [ca.com] [corrected] indicates FB gives their affiliates javascript to include in the page that connects to a FB server for cookie exchange. Pretty sneaky. I wonder if google does something like that with google analytics.

Corrected Link! [ca.com] This is why one should not slashdot before one's midday coffee. Please mod parent down, or something. That's a very small server and it will die.

Re:What if it's an un-used email?

They actually use your facebook cookie, which would contain your school email, to track you. So just delete your cookies and you should be OK.

Shocked

I'm shocked that you're shocked. Or even expect me to be mildly surprised that this is happening.

The only difference is that this is supposed to be a larger company and therefore better than the millions of smaller opt out pipe dreams out there?

Re:Shocked

I disabled my facebook account a few months ago because it occurred to me that someone is probably harvesting all the data that they can find off that site. Being someone who parties (too much ;-) ), I was constantly deleting tagged pictures of myself drinking off that website. I was damn glad that I did, because my BOSS at my uni went on looked at my facebook account before he hired me.

It would not suprise me if someone started offering money to purchase facebook accounts, just to harvest information, for say the price of $0.10 a friend w/ an account. I have a wild imagination, but with data mining being a really hot field, who knows what could be done with this information, it might even cost me a job in the future.

The future of privacy (or lack thereof), has me vigilant, even paranoid.

Re:Shocked

I'm constantly amazed about how people will post private information in a public place (thus making it public information), and then complain about how they are being robbed of their privacy.

Of course it also amazes me how popular these social networking sites are with adults. It's understandable that kids and teenagers want to climb a social ladder of sorts, since it is human nature to attempt to achieve more than your peers, and there is little available in the environments we provide to kids other than social hierarchy to climb... But when you grow up, generally people move on to trying to get ahead in other types of accomplishments. It seems things like MySpace and Facebook have extended High School into adulthood. When you place that much value on your social network, perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising that people are willing to give up their privacy to maintain it.

Re:Shocked

What amazes me is that peple think that your prospective employer actually gives a crap if you party on the weekends.

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don't want to work somewhere who cares about that anyway? If an employer cares what an employee is doing in their off time then they have already crossed the line IMO.

Re:Shocked

A number of reasons:

1) I don't get spammed by email. I don't have to send everybody my new email when it gets changed.
2) It's far, far, far easier to get in touch with people you've long fallen out of touch with.
3) Adults are just as much social whores as kids are. We (as a race, excepting geeks) ARE a social creature, and we like talking and socializing with others, in whatever way possible.

Re:Shocked

I was damn glad that I did, because my BOSS at my uni went on looked at my facebook account before he hired me

This, good sir, is why you set privacy controls.

You're right about their data-mining though; Facebook's ads are really starting to concern me. "Single geek age 20? Visit eHarmony today!" Obviously my relationship status and age are right there in my profile, but them dynamically generating personality keywords based off of my interests and then proving them to advertisers... yeah, I should probably leave Facebook too.

Re:Shocked

All you whippersnappers, I swear...Look me up by my real name, and you get nothing, nada, nihil, zip, because I made a very conscious decision to separate my online identity from my regular identity. Keeps me from having to be too careful.

Make the decision, and separate yourself from your online identity. You can always claim it later if you want to, but you can disclaim it as well

Re:Shocked

All you whippersnappers, I swear...Look me up by my real name, and you get nothing, nada, nihil, zip, because I made a very conscious decision to separate my online identity from my regular identity.

That won't help when someone else tags a photo (or whatever) with your real name.

Built-in

The title has a built-in "In Soviet Russia joke.

Re:Built-in

In_Soviet_Russia jokes are never so long.

I should have guessed.

"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."

I should have known there was a problem when I was signing up and saw this:

[ ] Opt out of Beacon(tm) on-line tracking when logged into Facebook; opt in to Lighthouse(tm) on-line tracking when logged out of Facebook.

How Dare They

This is an outrage! How DARE they try and sell me things! This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me". Horsefeathers! The fact that the products I want are in stock at any given point is PROOF that they've been using my spending habits to PREDICT MY NEEDS, which goes against everything I believe in.

When I say I want a free social networking site, it's not good enough that I not be billed directly for using it. The company hosting it must be desperately trying to sustain the bandwidth and CPU time for my constant page refreshes. At no point should they be even breaking even, let alone PROFITING from their service. Information wants to be free! Down with Big Brother! Doublethink! Free as in beer! ...What else... Oh! And my cell phone bill is too high!

Re:How Dare They

Way to one-sidedly misrepresent wholesale privacy violation as innocent altruism.

Apparently the telecom domestic spying scandal has not reached your part of the world?

In these times, companies have as much or more assets and power available to them than many of the world's nations, and allowing the wholesale gathering of information on individuals by private firms under the red herring of "private property" will lead to the exact same kind of oppression as allowing the government to do it under the red herring of "national security".

There are other ways to better serve me without having to identify me personally. Inventory tracking has been done successfully at the branch level for a century in its current form, and if they don't carry something, speaking to a manager will often get results.

There is a difference between profiting from advertising, and profiteering from spying on me and selling that data to telemarketers, government agencies, and other shady organizations.

Re:How Dare They

This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me". Horsefeathers! The fact that the products I want are in stock at any given point is PROOF that they've been using my spending habits to PREDICT MY NEEDS, which goes against everything I believe in.

That's clearly not true, because I've been to Safeway plenty of times and not ONCE have they offered me a blowjob.

Re:How Dare They

This is almost as infuriating as Vons/Safeway and their "club card", tracking my purchases to try and "Better serve me".

Well, turning the sarcasm detector off, change that to "Vons/Safeway and their 'club card' tracking my purchases and all other purchases with the credit card that has ever been used with the club card through special deals with the credit card company ...." and you will be closer.

Facebook is welcome to track you on their own website (practically every website owner does this with log analysis) and even track your outgoing clicks with redirects, hidden or bare (even Google does this, and they are really tricky about it too, if you've noticed it on their search results). What they are not welcome to do is track you when you are not on their website through "special deals" with other websites. Such aggregation of data on you is a disaster waiting to happen.

Unsubscribe

I just wish I could delete my facebook account. It's actually close to impossible, first you have to delete all your information (wall posts, friends, etc.), and then they'll delete your account. Very, very time consuming. But I doubt any of that info is REALLY gone.

Re:Unsubscribe

Change your profile picture to goatse...they should take card of the rest.

Dupe!

The CA article [ca.com] is the same one from 2007. Read the date at the bottom.

Published Nov 29 2007, 11:39 PM by Stefan Berteau

It was already posted on Slashdot. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/03/0656205 [slashdot.org] That's two dupes in a row guys! Care to go for three?

What shall we call this

Let's see, what do we call it when someone follows someone around to see where they go, their tastes, who they know, etc, etc.

Yeah, that's right, it's STALKING!

When you restrict those activities to the internet, it's cyber-stalking.

Why is stalking suddenly OK if you're trying to sell stuff? It certainly doesn't feel any less creepy to the person being stalked.

The fact that these things are done in secret and too often in spite of public denials tells me that they know at some level what they're doing is unwelcome and wrong.

If they want to cyber-stalk in exchange for a free service, then it's not REALLY free, it just happens to have a non-monetary price. Let them be honest about the price and then the users can decide for themselves how acceptable the deal is.

Mark Zuckerberg

I've often thought about the various people who have made a fortune or are about to make a fortune from online properties.

Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose, the Flickr people, etc.

Usually I think to myself, that's awesome that these people were able to work hard and see their vision to the end and make a living from it.

When I think of Zuckerberg, I think the exact opposite. Fuck that guy. I've always felt like he sleezed his way to where he is, and stories like this only reinforce that opinion.

(prepared to be modded troll...)

Here's the list:

Facebook is currently affiliated with the following sites:

        * Art.com
        * Blockbuster
        * Bluefly
        * CBS Interactive
        * eBay
        * ExpoTV
        * Fandango
        * Gamefly.com
        * Kiva, Kongregate
        * LiveNation
        * Mercantila
        * NY Times
        * Overstock.com
        * Redlight Mgmt
        * Seamless Web
        * Six Apart
        * STA Travel
        * TheKnot
        * Travelocity
        * Viagogo

http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=57 [facebook.com]

The first bloody Google result |: |

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=facebook-affiliated+sites&spell=1 [google.com]