2010-05-09

Facebook = the net

About World Domination...
Microsoft, Linux, Google, they all lost the battle for the desktop. Facebook has won, they officially own the personal computer.
More and more popular websites can read your private facebook data when you visit them, even when the facebook-tab is not open. I'm not sure that logging out helps, since technically cookies can still identify you. I don't like this facebook-knows-all world.

About Privacy...
"So don't put private stuff on facebook!" I hear you say. "Not that easy!" I reply "because facebook is keeping bloody track of your online movements, even when you haven't given it private info or when you don't post anything on your wall."
Not convinced yet, let me quote Ryan Singel: 'Now, say you you write a public update, saying, “My boss had a crazy great idea for a new product!” Now, you might not know it, but there is a Facebook page for “My Crazy Boss” and because your post had all the right words, your post now shows up on that page.'
How long will it take until facebook posts stuff in your name on a dozen websites, just because you (accidentally of course) stumbled upon www.hotredheadsinstockings.com.

About deleting your facebook account...
This link explains how difficult it is to really delete your account.

Anyway, starting today I'll split my browsing habits, isolating facebook in its own private virtual machine.

3 comments:

Philip Paeps said...

Why not just delete your account? Yes, they make it really difficult. After you find the text-link in the middle of a paragraph, hidden on some help site to delete (not deactivate, which is what that article found), you still need to jump through quite a few hoops.

I think you need to confirm four times and then they still don't delete data for a couple of weeks. Logging in during that period (why?) would cancel the deletion procedure.

That company is really evil and having a Facebook account honestly has no value.

Toni said...

I agree. It may even get worse, because most of the privacy settings are opt-out instead of opt-in.

My tip: I use facebook 99% of the time from my iPhone. Luckily, the iPhone does not (yet) support multitasking ;-).

Philip Paeps said...

"Privacy settings"? There is no privacy. They keep all your data and they will publish it on a whim. You have no control.

Don't forget that in addition to the data you give them, there is all the data they collect without asking you -- as Paul mentioned.

Just cut your losses and get out.

Note that your iPhone -- which allegedly does not support multitasking -- cheerfully reports your location to anyone who asks convincingly enough.