Facebook users: please note.

[Ben]

The following should be of interest to you...

Facebook tracks you even after logging out


But in alarming new revelations, Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic conducted tests, which revealed that when you log out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify you...

...Whenever you visit a web page that contains a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending details of your movements back to Facebook, Cubrilovic says.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/tec ... 1ksfk.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Happy to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Ben

[tiltbillings]

The following should be of interest to you...

Facebook tracks you even after logging out

Fecesbook

[Ben]

Yes I have to say I am eating my own words.

No doubt, interesting days lay ahead.

[Akuma]

Maybe u want to have a look at Ghostery addon for Firefox.

[Ben]

I do, very much so. However my browser at work is IE and at my home away from home its chrome and I don't have the bandwidth nor allocation to download firefox for the computer in the home away from home.

[cooran]

Maybe u want to have a look at Ghostery addon for Firefox.

Some of the comments attached to Ben's newslink mention that Chrome/Firefox addons don't protect against Facebook. What do you think?

with metta
Chris

[Akuma]

Maybe u want to have a look at Ghostery addon for Firefox.

Some of the comments attached to Ben's newslink mention that Chrome/Firefox addons don't protect against Facebook. What do you think?

with metta
Chris

The article on Eset Antivirus speaks about the Private-Mode of the browser, not about Addons liek NoScript or Ghostery. Ive never actually investigated this, but after quickly checking it it seems the problem is that the Private Mode is not actually deleting the cookies when browser (Firefox 3.6.18 in my case) is closed which of course gives Applets the possibility to use them in the next session. So I would set the option to delete the cookies on-close and then test if theyre actually deleted - if they are not creating a .bat that deletees the contents of the folder where they are saved should get rid of them.
It would be interesting to have in-depth information on how exactly these applets work and where they save their data. I am not sure but maybe using ProcMon or something similar would suffice to find non-standard save-locations. Sorry that I cant be more specific here.

[cooran]

Thanks Akuma!

with metta
Chris

[tiltbillings]

WinPatrol is an excellent program for managing cookies and such

http://www.winpatrol.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ben]

Thanks Tilt, that's worth checking out!

[octathlon]

You can manually go to your preferences in any browser (not sure about IE) and delete all the Facebook cookies. Then be sure not to go back on there again. Just say no! Or, install some other browser that you use only for going to Facebook and do all your other browsing in your main browser.

In a related story, OnStar will continue to track you even after you close your account. So far I haven't had a car new enough to have one of those things, but similar tracking devices are being put into most new cars.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... tomers.ars" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Also, insurance companies try to get you to let them track your driving habits by offering a lower rate if it shows that you are a "good driver." And there are the "teenager tracker" devices. And some turnpikes use GPS or RFID to track your trip and bill you, with the controversy being that the time difference between stations lets them know if you were speeding and whether you should get a ticket based on that, not to mention just having a record of where you were and when. And on and on...

[Jhana4]

Facebook is the cyber equivalent of cigarettes. I just go on the assumption that everything I post there will eventually end up being public, so I just think twice before I post.

[chownah]

Facebook is the cyber equivalent of cigarettes. I just go on the assumption that everything I post there will eventually end up being public, so I just think twice before I post.

So.....you're a smoker then?
chownah

[householder]

Agreed with the poster re using FB on the basis that everything will be public.

I apply the 'Twitter' rule of thumb - i.e. that everything will eventually be archived for posterity and publicly available. That informs my posting, which is generally quite banal involving Dhammapada quotes or re-linking info about the slow train wreck that is the global economic collapse. Right speech is particularly important to consider on there.

[Jhana4]

Yes.

At this point, the writing is on the wall:

Facebook wants to make all of their user's content public and find new ways to make money from selling access to their user's content.

It is just a matter of time. Having seen this, it is hard to keep getting re-upset each time FB incrementally pushes the envelope.

A more sane strategy is just to consider everything you write in Facebook 100% seen and bide your time until a privacy centered social network like Diaspora or something similar gets off the ground.

You are never going to have privacy or control with Facebook.