I don't have to worry about Facebook selling my browser history.
Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.)
Facebook isn't going to sell your personal info to advertisers. Just accept it, move on, and complain about other issues that actually do exist.
Maybe they won't per se, but they are still the holders of all that data, and that data is worth a lot to a lot of people, not all of them have ill intent, but some have, or might come along anytime in the future. Then suddenly you are exposed to the wrong people just because you wanted share your social life with your friends (not the world).
>> This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.
The internet is not for-profit.
Maybe what you meant wast that it is what enables companies to offer free web services for the end users and still be for-profit. Though they seldom really disclose the privacy cost to the end user.
> Facebook isn't going to sell your personal info to advertisers.
No, they just have gaping personal data exposures [1] and loopholes [2] where the savvy data-miner could easily piece together a dossier on pretty much any FB user.
Left as an exercise for the reader: Is this intentional (ct: CIA) or merely incompetence?
Remember that Facebook is a for-profit company and they will do whatever it takes to keep the money coming in, not giving a shit about what you want and your privacy.
Same goes for any other company such as Google, Apple, Microsoft or whatever. It's not evil, just how it works.
What this guy wrote seems very honest and his reasons are aligned with why I would quit Facebook. I would love to know if people who have tried it ended up going back (relapse rate). I feel like if I quit I would want to go back fairly quickly and have withdrawal symptoms. I hope that's not the case.
i tried to leave facebook several times.. its too hard to do it if you have any kind of social life, these are my reasons:
- school announcements(surprise tests, parties, etc) used to be on facebook when i was at school
- if i wanted someone to send me a photo, they just uploaded the photo to facebook.
- my girlfriend (now wife) pushing me to use it
- a job doing facebook apps
I think many facebook users complain that facebook doesn't resemble a real social network enough, and in many ways, I'm glad it doesn't. This author doesn't like that he hears from a lot of people he doesn't talk to much, and to me, that kind of means that yes, I have my friends I interact with often, but I also have facebook to bring me closer to the people who may just not be in that inner circle yet. I wouldn't have the time or energy to pursue those relationships on my own and facebook makes it much easier. That may sound unnatural, but if we were using computers to accomplish only what we would be accomplishing without them, then why compute? Facebook is better at keeping up with my acquaintances and friends than I am, and that's why I use it. That doesn't make my real life social network any less important.
As for the privacy stuff, I don't know much about data mining, but I do know that there seems to be an interesting relationship between total data and what can be done on a person scale when it comes to privacy invasion by giant companies. As the information collected becomes more intricate, more data is required, i.e. every visited page with a like button on it ever, and the data becomes increasingly difficult to mine. I don't like the idea of a single person poking around my internet history, but then I remember that unless I were a felon, I just don't see facebook having the resources for that to happen (not that they absolutely couldn't, but that they couldn't target ME, one in 500 million, without targeting a large group that I am a part of, say, the state of new york, which would be a very difficult task. This is a question of probabilistic capability, not absolute capability.). Maybe I'm wrong, let me know if I am. This could be an important lesson in online privacy for me.
Mining for information in data exceeding peta bytes are not really uncommon anymore. There are even tools in public you can use for it, where Apache Mahout is one that comes to mind.
> Before, I used to only open Facebook in a single-site browser
> called Fluid, so it wouldn't be able to tie my browsing history
> to my account (I do the same for Google as well). As it turns
> out this isn't good enough; they log your IP address when you
> request a Like button and use it to build a profile of your
> activity.
I do this as well (isolate my Facebook browsing), but hadn't considered the effects of leaking my IP address. Does anyone have data or anecdotes on how effectively accounts can be linked to IP addresses?
> each time you visit a third-party webpage that has a Facebook
> Like button... the unique characteristics of your PC and browser,
> such as your IP address, screen resolution, operating system and
> browser version, are also recorded.
> Bejar acknowledged that Facebook could learn where specific
> members go on the Web when they are logged off by matching the
> unique PC and browser characteristics.... He emphasized that
> Facebook makes it a point not to do this. "We've said that we
> don't do it, and we couldn't do it without some form of consent
> and disclosure," Bejar says.
Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables the internet.)
Facebook isn't going to sell your personal info to advertisers. Just accept it, move on, and complain about other issues that actually do exist.