Facebook has been in the news a lot lately with its upcoming IPO and speculation about the company’s worth and future profitability. It reminds me all over again how much I dislike and distrust Facebook and its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. FB may or may not be any worse than all those other entities that track our every move, but it has been censured for privacy violations, it is being audited for privacy violations, and it continues its violate–apologize–violate-again behavior.
USAToday explains in detail, for the umpteenth time, “How Facebook tracks you across the Web.” It came as a nudge to renew my vigilance against FB, for all the reasons I’ve listed before. I suggest readers bring themselves up to date on Facebook’s current modus operandi and consider again whether they want to be a part of it — although extrication at this point may be nearly impossible.
Against my better judgment I linked Pied Type to a Facebook page, where a third party app captures and lists my new posts and tweets as they appear. It’s not clear whether that page is enough of a convenience to readers to justify the likely chink in my privacy armor that it poses. And of course, anyone visiting the page will of necessity already be a FB pawn.
The USAToday article reminded me that undoubtedly I have FB cookies lodged in my browsers. Cleaning them out is my next task, as soon as I post this. Take care, dear readers. Facebook is still not your friend.
My previous posts about Facebook:
- FTC slaps Facebook
- Sorkin sums up social networks
- Further Facebook folly
- A wee confession
- I should stop knocking Facebook, but …
- Please don’t post kids’ pictures
- Facebook ‘deactivation’ does not equal ‘cancellation’
- Wanted: An ‘opt-in’ option
What others are saying:
- As Facebook Preps For IPO, Privacy Tweaks (informationweek.com)
- Privacy: Facebook and Google baking it in, but will startups follow the recipe? (geekwire.com)
- Facebook: Just a Fad or Here to Stay? (pcmag.com)
- Privacy worries dog Facebook ahead of IPO – Phys.Org (phys.org)
- Ahead Of IPO, GM Drops Facebook Ads; Forrester Warns Other Companies May Follow (marketingland.com)
- Facebook “enhances transparency” in their Data Use policy (slashgear.com)
- Poll: Users Don’t Trust Facebook (newser.com)
Sigh… As much as I hate it, the facie space is the only connection I have to some people… 😕
Email? Telephone? Snail mail? Easy for me to say, of course. I only keep up with immediate family, barely.
By “connection,” I actually meant “the occasional sneak peek.” Anything more only encourages the nosy buggers! 😀
Peeking, of course, earns you a Facebook cookie so they can follow you around. But I really can’t say much, since there’s a link to Facebook right there in my sidebar. 🙁
I use Facebook all the time, too. It’s the best way for me to keep up with friends and family. Plus, I really do enjoy it. I find a lot of news, photos, and funnies on it all the time. The way I figure is that a couple years ago when i signed up, without knowing what all FB did, then they got all my info then. So what good does it do now. Also, I imagine that just being on the internet and having an IP and using Gmail also has me tracked with someone. So long as I don’t do anything wrong, I just deal with it. I don’t like it, but really don’t have much of a choice at this time. Well, I do… I can leave FB. But we’re still watched in other manners.
The one thing, though, that I adamantly refrain from doing/using are the apps. No way. Absolutely not. I deny them all and will not use them. I don’t need them anyway… it’s not like I don’t have enough to keep myself busy on the internet all day and night anyway.
I absolutely HATE Facebook apps. I only wish I could stop my “friends” from trying to get me to join them!
I’m so antisocial, I don’t have any Facebook friends. Not one. And I don’t friend anyone else.
I refuse. I doubt they even notice.
I reached a similar conclusion in a previous post: Facebook already had everybody’s info a few years ago. The sanctions and audits came too late. I’ll probably go to my grave protesting intrusions and tracking by Facebook, Google, Yahoo, the TSA, the government, …
LOL.. speaking of TSA… did you hear that Kissinger received the full pat down?
Yep. The average IQ of those TSA agents must be about 80. Cretins, all of them — the agents and the agency and the lawmakers that enabled them. I swear I will not fly again unless there’s a death in the family (and if I still have a license I’ll consider driving instead).
LOL… I hear ya.
Okay, I’ve tried twice now to add another comment without success. What gives? 😕
WP heard us talking?
Apparently they didn’t like hat I was trying to say!
Censorship!
I think it’s the Do Not Track Plus link I tried to add!
😆
No, seriously. It won’t let me post a link, either as a straight URL or as HTML!
That’s really odd. I haven’t changed any settings this evening — except my default to not receive comment follow-ups.
I couldn’t even find a setting to disallow links when I checked mine! Have you tried doing a test comment of your own with a link? You can always delete it later.
This is a test link with a link to I want ice water.
Seems to have worked.
Still broken for the link I tried before. Let’s try PIED TYPE instead.
Wow! 😯
Wow, I am really old school here. I signed up to FB only a couple of months ago and was confused about the privacy settings. I think I’ve got them right now, but I suspect my email address got “out there” because the spam on my email has suddenly exploded. I’m wondering whether to try to get a different address but my present one is embedded in so many places. FB has sure complicated my life and I use it very little. Nuts. 😥
You know Jim, I think you may have just cracked the mystery of just why Facebook is such an enormous success: Damned near all the discomforts of actual “real world” social-interaction without ever having to leave your home! 🙄
I found it crazy complicated to set up all the privacy settings (and everything else) and of course that left me wondering what I’d left wide open. And regardless of the settings, FB can see everything and sells or gives our info to its many, many partners.
My human says – wait 2 or 3 years the men in black will be around with a brain implant and a punishment collar!
Sandy, at the rate we are going, I’m afraid your human may be very close to the truth.
PT, thanks for the timely warning. Now all I need is a privacy setting how-to….
It’s hard to keep up because FB keeps changing. Part of their master plan, I suspect …
I had a FB page along with my personal one for awhile but gave them both the heave-ho, then emptied my cache and cookies, etc. Waaay too much information sharing for me to be comfortable. Email is good enough. If the family doesn’t use that, or the telephone, they’re out of luck with me. 🙂 All that said, there are plenty in the writing world who insist we must have FB…Twitter…LinkedIn…and so forth to market ourselves. I don’t know about you but I really detest this approach, for more than one reason. I’m fated for oblivion evidently except for my little spot in WordPress. Am I upset about that? Noooo…. 😉
I couldn’t agree more.