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December 3, 2007
Facebook's Collecting Beacon Data Even When You've Opted Out
The CA Security Advisor Research Blog says Facebook's tracking users who opt out or are not logged in.:
"Despite the fact that I was not logged in, Facebook just received enough information to tie the activity I took on their affiliate to my individual account, which combined with the social data they already have, such as circles of friends, level of education, , communication patterns, and geographic locations, would allow them to profile individual consumer behavior on a nearly unprecedented level of detail."
Nice. You're signing up for an awful lot when you sign up for a Facebook profile.
Facebook responded, by the way:
"When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. If a Facebook user clicks 'No, thanks' on the partner site notification, Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well."
Posted by mhall at 12:35 PM | Add Comment
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