Facebook Is Tracking You.... Do You "Like" This?
According to a Dutch researcher named Arnold Roosendaal, who is a doctoral candidate at the Tilburg University for Law, Technology and Society, the Facebook "like" button is being used by Facebook to keep track of your activities. You can read his actual research here, but I will summarize it for you.
Roosendaal says Facebook uses unique cookies (a file that resides in your browser's cache that contains some level of information about you or your browsing habits) to keep track of your Facebook identity and that these cookies transfer information back to Facebook every time you log into Facebook.
What is most disturbing to Roosendaal, and probably to many others when they read about this, is that every time you visit a website that has a Facebook "like" button, that unique cookie transfers information about you back to Facebook to tell them about the page you are viewing. So, using this information, Facebook is essentially keeping track of the websites you visit, and therefore would know the types of things you "like."
In my view, there are both positives and negatives about this. Everyone wants the customized experience that the Internet provides these days. With more than 500 million Facebook users and growing, everyone seems to be more than happy to provide personal information to Facebook so they can use it to provide an individualized experience. On the other hand, it seems a bit creepy that someone is gathering a file about you and what you do. it's all very CIA, spy-movie-type stuff.
And with the explosion of websites using the 'like' button (more than 2 million to-date), it seems that Facebook will be harvesting a boatload of information about all of us. The good news is that there are a couple of simple ways to solve this:
1. Turn off your browser cookies. Just turn them off. Yeah, I know that some of you won't like that idea because cookies are convenient for helping a website remember us, or our usernames and passwords, etc. But hey, it's an option.
2. Close your Facebook account. Let's be honest. You waste too much time on Facebook anyway, don't you? Yeah, I'm talking to you. You don't really wanna talk to that annoying guy from high school anyway, do you? Get off Facebook and go read a book.
3. Get over it. Facebook isn't the only company keeping track of you. Ever heard of Google, Microsoft, etc? Just keep doing what you're doing. You have Facebook messages to answer anyway.
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