Facebook: We Didn't Mean to Track You

[BendtheBar]

Facebook privacy row: Social network giant admits to 'bugs' | Mail Online

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.

[Shadowschmadow]

Google does the same thing.... Sorta.

[MC]

Yeah. You lose the cookie for logging in, but not the cookie (Or whatever) that keeps sending data. AVG for the win.

[BendtheBar]

There is huge money in knowing what you "Like".

Notice most ads on web pages are catered towards your interests. Google is in on the tracking game.

[5kgLifter]

The tracking thing annoys me, I tend to just ignore it as well so they get nowhere anyway.

[Shadowschmadow]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

There is huge money in knowing what you "Like".

Notice most ads on web pages are catered towards your interests. Google is in on the tracking game.

Only works on those who allow it to. I see those stupid ads everyday, but I never click on them.

[bruteforce]

You can throw the trackers off and have a great time doing it. You just need to edit some of the info in your browser and you can replace that info with whatever you want them to see. This also lets you get around the internet explorer only sites.

[BendtheBar]

I was a pretty hardcore Linux geek back in 1999. I was pimping the dual boot system.

[bruteforce]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

I was a pretty hardcore Linux geek back in 1999. I was pimping the dual boot system.

Nice. I'll stop derailing this thread in a minute, but I'm really enjoying running virtual box on my machine and having multiple linux installs on it. Makes it easy to run windows for a few of my work applications and then pop over to my usual work environment by moving to another window.

Not really feeling the new GRUB2 boot loader for some of the new distros though. Last I tried it, chain loading was broken and it took forever to be able to boot multiple versions.

[MC]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

There is huge money in knowing what you "Like".

Notice most ads on web pages are catered towards your interests. Google is in on the tracking game.

I use FireFox with Ad Block Plus as an add on. I haven't seen much in the way of internet advertising in years. When they do figure out a way to creep an add onto a page, I just click "Block" and it's script gets added the Ad Block's filtering system.

Facebook and Google are definitely all about understanding your habits to see you things (well, they make money selling advertising space).