Facebook Beacon Privacy Issues Worse Than Previously Thought? 138
An anonymous reader writes "Further developments in the Facebook Beacon affair ... According to PC World, a Computer Associates researcher claims that Beacon, when installed on participating sites, is sending data about users' activity back to Facebook, even when a user is logged out of Facebook - despite Facebook's claims to the contrary."
FredDC (Score:5, Insightful)
No privacy on a social networking website? I am shocked!
</sarcasm>
Microsoft and $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FredDC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure how this works (Score:5, Insightful)
Get 'em young and innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft and $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't it be Big Brother? It's an elective free service, which is two things that the figure Big Brother in 1984 most definatelly does not represent. You are under no obligation to use it. That's all there is folks, don't like it? Don't use it, problem solved.
People do like it though, most of the people I know who are on it don't care about this new storm+teacup, which they view as, well, not worthy of notice. Facebook does what they want, end of problem. I use it too. Ok I block the sidebar beacon adverts, but otherwise I like it.
Oh yes, and online shopping is going to be tracked by everyone who can possibly manage it soon. It's big, big money. So Facebook are doing it now, well, give it a year or so and try to find a free online service of this type that doesn't do tracking, or promises not to in the future.
I think you better look up Diogenes for advice first mind.
Re:Microsoft and $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if I remember correctly (I haven't read 1984 for a few years now), it is Big Brotherish. I mean, sure, it's not enforced, default, systematic spying by a government, but the Big Brother scenario did not get that way overnight in the book. It took many years of phasing in. I think it's discussed in the part where the main character is reading Emmanual Goldstein's highly illegal and very sensational alternative history of the world. (Even that bit is ringing true nowadays)
Re:Get 'em young and innocent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft and $$$ (Score:2, Insightful)
The point of 1984 is how power perpetuates itself through the establishment of a reign of fear (like Stalin did with the purges) through constant surveilance of the people and the presence of an external enemy, whether real or imagined, as tools to control dissent and keep power for its own sake. There is nothing in a capitalist society to stop that from happening, I would say more, because of the way people are lulled into a sense of security an advanced consumerist capitalist society are more likely to fall for it because they feel they have more to lose if the "enemy" wins, and they are more ready to let the changes creep in in the name of security and comfort.
Re:Microsoft and $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Block the "Feature" (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't- and can't- address the far more serious underlying cause. Namely that Facebook and the other companies involved are clearly totally contemptuous of their users' privacy and quite happy to screw them over in the name of a few quick bucks. And then hide this behind a weaselish and unclear "opt-in-by-default" agreement. (Yes, it's acceptable for them to make money from a free website; no, it's absolutely *not* acceptable for them to do it in this way).
Frankly, I'm glad I don't use Facebook. At one stage I may have believed that it was possibe to balance the invasion one's privacy by controlling what appeared on their page- and then some low-down **** like this comes along. It's one thing to have your Facebook information publicly available, quite another to have your activities on apparently unrelated sites made public.
I wouldn't touch Facebook with a ******* barge pole now. Your fix may work on the current problem, but what happens when the next moneygrabbing exploit comes along? What happens when these assholes figure out a totally different way to use the information they already have on you?
Seriously, fuck that, and fuck Facebook. Their behaviour was already unacceptable- regardless of how they snuck it into the legal agreement. With this latest news on top, I seriously hope that this marks a turning point in Facebook's fortunes. Joe Public isn't as concerned about his privacy as he should be, but when it comes to blabbing about his Christmas present purchases without his knowledge, it puts it in more concrete terms.
Not the best friends (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, how long do you want to dwell in the past? The future is so wide open...
Re:FredDC (Score:2, Insightful)