Lawmakers call for trade commission to investigate Facebook

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I suspected as much from all social networks and online sites.
(Hill) Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on Wednesday called for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's practice of tracking users even after they log out of its site. (IHatetheMedia) ...Zuckerberg is a spying little weasel. Too bad someone doesn’t kick his weaselly ass. (Daily Mail) ...when you sign up to Facebook it automatically puts files known as ‘cookies’ on your computer which monitor your browsing history. Some cookies remain on your computer after you log out, and report back when you visit a site connected to Facebook. This covers millions of websites and refers to anything with a Facebook ‘like’ or ‘recommend’ button on it. This covers millions of websites worldwide and refers to anything with a Facebook ‘like’ or ‘recommend’ button on it. Monitoring all: Facebook founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg The data that is sent back is the IP address, or unique identifier of your computer, and a log of what you have been viewing. Mr Cubrilovic wrote: ‘Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit. ‘The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate (web) browser for Facebook interactions. ‘This is not what ‘logout’ is supposed to mean’. The admission is the latest in a series of privacy blunders from Facebook, which has a record of only correcting such matters when they are brought to light by other people... (MORE PAIN)(Pretty Much Everything Related To You And Facebook Is Recorded In Your Facebook Permanent Record | Techdirt)Thanks to European data privacy rules, some folks have successfully requested and received a detailed list of all the data that Facebook has kept about them. They've released a redacted version of the document for one person, which comes in at a hefty 880 pages. To be honest, nothing in this is all that surprising, but it does highlight just how much data Facebook ends up with and that it appears to not delete very much, if anything, ever. The parts that seemed a bit questionable to me were things like recording every computer from which you'd ever logged in... as well as a list of all other Facebook people who have logged in from that same machine. I'm assuming they use this for security/anti-phishing, but it's still a bit creepy to keep all that information. The other part that's a bit strange is that Facebook keeps deleted messages. That's a bit more troubling, since most people expect that when they delete things, they're really deleted. Still, while a lot of people may make a big deal out of this, it still doesn't seem particularly surprising or really bad. At best it's just a reminder of how much info you're giving out, and that Facebook is hanging onto... forever. Perhaps your "permanent record" is becoming a real thing. (MORE PAIN)

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