Zuckerberg is changing Facebook’s privacy policy (again) in the very near future.
Used to be, they would watch their more than 1 billion members’ activity closely on the site. Now they intend to watch your activity off their site as well.
Facebook has announced that it will soon begin collecting data on off-site user activity, meaning that the social network will monitor the websites and apps you use when you're away from Facebook. In other words: if you frequently visit websites for electronics (such as BestBuy.com or Gamestop.com), you can expect to see advertisements for tech retailers the next time you visit Facebook.
"This is what Facebook does," noted Jeff Chester, and executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy. "Facebook is going to use multiple ways to track their users and sell them to their advertisers." – infopackets
What is even nastier, is that the “Do not track me” request sent by your browser will be ignored by Facebook.
If you wish to ‘opt out’, you’ll be directed to an outside site, but the ‘opt out’ will be cookie based and if you clear cache and cookies, they’ll be back tracking you. The same is true when the cookie expires. What do you bet Facebook will be putting a self renewing tracking cookie on your computer also?
Also, Facebook ((and others) track you through those little icons you see on sites:
Facebook already has access to much of this information through tools that it uses to measure the performance of its ads as well as through "plug-ins" that integrate Facebook features on third-party websites, but the company has not until now incorporated the data into its users' ad targeting profiles. – Huffpost
Ostensibly, they point out that this will make the ads you see more relevant. They don’t mention the detailed info they’ll be selling to advertisers. Thus the title of this article. All Mark Zuckerberg wants is to compete with Google for advertising revenue. You are a commodity and quite frankly, he couldn’t care less about your wishes regarding his tracking you.
Interestingly,
In 2012, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits. – ibid
My thought? I’ll miss my Facebook friends, but I won’t miss Facebook.
Source:
http://www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton/ci_26004328/wolverton-facebook-changes-tracking-practices-again
http://www.infopackets.com/news/9150/facebook-monitor-user-activity-outside-its-site
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/12/facebook-ad-profiles_n_5487372.html