News Social Media And Privacy Facebook’s Tracking Practices Have ‘no Legal Basis’

[Deleted member 28740]

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...k-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report

Facebook’s tracking practices have ‘no legal basis’

The researchers now claim that Dead Link Removed, 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.

Facebook places tracking cookies on users’ computers if they visit any page on the facebook.com domain, including fan pages or other pages that do not require a Facebook account to visit.

When a user visits a third-party site that carries one of Facebook’s social plug-ins, it detects and sends the tracking cookies back to Facebook - even if the user does not interact with the Like button, Facebook Login or other extension of the social media site.

EU privacy law states that prior consent must be given before issuing a cookie or performing tracking, unless it is necessary for either the networking required to connect to the service (“criterion A”) or to deliver a service specifically requested by the user (“criterion B”).

 

[LuckyDuck]

That's why I use the Ghosty Extension on Chrome.

 

[garden]

Good to know. I left fb because I googled myself to find that all my pictures that I had set to be viewed by my friends only (my account was private) were there for my full view. All I had to do was search myself and all the pics that I had uploaded to fb were there even though my account was private and I had it set to where it was only viewable to my friends. Nothing is private really. FB made me feel more isolated anyways because I could not relate to most people there. It isn't for everyone.

 

[LuckyDuck]

That's why I use a variant of my name on facebook and keep my profile picture to that of cats. The internet loves them for some reason...

 

[Anarchy]

Unfortunately that is just the tip of the face-spook iceberg.

There are issues with psychological experiments conducted on subscribers without their consent, for example sending selected subscribers news feed with only negative content and monitoring their posts for negativity,

and there is the ridiculous level of censorship which the 'spook applies Dead Link Removed

The tracking of casual visitors is easy enough to deal with, browser add ons like "privacy badger" and "self destructing cookies" respectively block trackers from even being loaded, and clean out those that get in.

It isn't just social media who use trackers, online traders do too, including airlines. the trackers are used to stop you getting to see a cheaper price than you were first offered, so cleaning them out can be very worth while, even if it does mean having to log in to some of your accounts each time.


Creepiness isn't limited to social media. Lap Top maker Lenovo (they bought IBM's laptop making wing) has recently been caught compromising its customer's security for the sake of a few pennies, by secretly pre loading their laptops with spy ware. Lenovo had tried to dismiss this as something minor - like having your online banking login compromised for the sake of a few targetted adverts and a few pennies to Lenovo, when you paid them hundreds for a new computer is minor!

There's also the issue of your friends innocently putting your names onto photos, so that creepy folk like google can link your name to your face and us it with face recognition software, and also link you with your network of friends. sometimes this has hilarious results, for example creepy google asking for the names of facial reconstructions of fossil primates http://arc-team-open-research.blogspot.it/2013/03/anthropolog.html

There's probably a good reason why computer security guys usually have sticky tape over their computer's web cam, and people who took a "google glass" into a bar, all to often got thumped.

 

[shimmerz]

Being in Digital Forensics, this stuff is something I just 'know'. Facebook I scrapped years ago. I won't even carry an airmiles card or give out my phone number. Thanks Changeling for posting this. It is all good to know stuff.

 

[anthony]

Anyone who does anything online, should not expect privacy. Everything... and I mean everything, leaves a digital footprint. Ghosty, or any other anonymous service won't completely protect you IF you know where to look for the evidence. Private browsing isn't private, it's just more private than standard browsing, is all. VPN's are not absolute private... connections can be traced. Any encryption written is crackable to date... if someone can write it, someone can get around it.

 

[LuckyDuck]

Yes and no, @anthony, if the goverment wants to track you personally, they'll just get into your system and get that. They don't need to track you externally.

Blocking ghostery and most of the other tracker blockers out there block most of the semi-friendly trackers which is nearly 99% of it.

Why the hell not use it?

 

[Friday]

Anyone who does anything online, should not expect privacy.

That also includes mobile phones. Each & every single thing pertaining to mobile phone use? Has scripts & codes monitoring, sorting, sending, saving as all that info is routed through server farms. My ex is one of the DBAs in that system. Over 30 trillion interactions a day in the US, Australia, & Portugal. That's NSA level access into any device anyone uses that goes out over mobile carriers. LOL. "The govt." is the least of anyone's concerns on mobile networks. Employees of governments have to issue warrants and prove A-Z to get access to those servers. But every code monkey who's ever worked for them? 24/7/365 access. Tunnel in with a secure connection, and voila.

Shrug. But the average 12yo can clone your phone. Almost the same thing. Just more targeted, & only functions in real time (instead of a conversation you had, or pic you deleted 5 years ago... In addition to absolutely everything you're doing at present.). A smart 12yo can code a few bots to monitor & record all your usage, though.

Privacy is a myth.

 

[Friday]

Worrying about a single App's privacy policy? Missing the forest for the tree.

 

[shimmerz]

Why the hell not use it?

No problem using it. Just work online as if you aren't using it. Don't let these 'privacy tools' fool you into thinking that you are hidden. You are not. You don't know what scripts are actually written in these programs. Here is a a good review on Ghostery, Lucky. Not picking on you....it just gets my back up the way these programs give people a false sense of security.

http://lifehacker.com/ad-blocking-extension-ghostery-actually-sells-data-to-a-514417864

 

[LuckyDuck]

Really? I guess I should bar the door and hide a gun under my pillow. I don't want anybody learning I suck at Flappy Bird.

On another note, Lifehacker.com has answers for everything, but when you google "lifehacker is not the best souce for information" you only come up with more lifehacker websites and, well, nothing else. I wonder why...