Spy alert: Facebook 'tracks all visitors, breaching EU law'

[Surya Gayatri]

Exclusive: People without Facebook accounts, logged out users, and EU users who have explicitly opted out of tracking are all being tracked, report says

Facebook tracking of users using cookies breaches EU privacy law, report finds.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report

This is why I stay away from FB.

If you don't want Zuckerberg et.al. following your every click, don't go there.


"Facebook tracks the web browsing of everyone who visits a page on its site even if the user does not have an account or has explicitly opted out of tracking in the EU, extensive research commissioned by the Belgian data protection agency has revealed.

The report, from researchers at the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT (ICRI) and the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography department (Cosic) at the University of Leuven, and the media, information and telecommunication department (Smit) at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, was commissioned after an original draft report revealed Facebook’s privacy policy breaches European law.

The researchers now claim that Facebook tracks computers of users without their consent, whether they are logged in to Facebook or not, and even if they are not registered users of the site or explicitly opt out in Europe. Facebook tracks users in order to target advertising.

The issue revolves around Facebook’s use of its social plugins such as the “Like” button, which has been placed on more than 13m sites including health and government sites.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report

[MineralMan]

1. It is almost impossible to use the Internet without being tracked.

If you really want to make use of the web, you're going to be using search engines, visiting websites, and doing all of the things it makes available. You can take measures to limit tracking, but in doing so, you also lose access to much of what makes the web so useful. Google is the largest tracking engine, with Bing and Yahoo following closely behind.

So, what's the fastest growing browser? Chrome. What's the search engine that provides the best results for searches? Google.

All of them are tracking you. Why? So they can sell more ads. It's simple. None of them really care where you go on the Internet. They just want to be able to show you ads you'll be more likely to click. That's the reason for all of this tracking. Someone has to pay for all of this information to be available, I suppose.

I just ignore it all. If they want to track me, the're welcome to help themselves. They can show me ads. I don't care. I won't click them. If I need goods or services, I'll go look for them on my own. I just don't care. I use the Internet almost constantly. I want to use it in the most effective possible way, so I just ignore all of this tracking.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Point taken, but the EU is supposed to have extra safeguards in place...

[MineralMan]

3. OK. I live in the U.S., though.

It's all give and take, really. Life's a compromise. Always.

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Yes, I know a lot of people don't care about being spied on,

but it creeps me out.

[newfie11]

5. Go figure

F**k You NSA/CIA!

[Surya Gayatri]

6. And, thank heavens for the EU who is a least waging a rear guard action to fight them!