Social media giant Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is in hot waters yet again as reports about its alleged breach of EU privacy laws surfaced on the web recently.
Belgian Data Protection Agency (DPA) did a detailed research and concluded that Facebook tracks our browsing activities all the time irrespective of whether we are logged-in on the social media platform or not. It disclosed that users who do not have an account on Facebook are also tracked when they visit any website that is hosted on the facebook.com domain. It remains no secret that there are millions of websites with Facebook plug-ins that do not require you to sign-in or sign-up on Facebook to access it.
EU Privacy Law clearly notes that tracking information of users who have not given consent is unacceptable. There is no way Facebook can justify its tracking of user information who are not even using the social media platform.
Facebook updated its cookie policy this year. It states that they use cookies to track browsing information of users even if they are not on Facebook or have logged out. The social media giant says they do it to gather data, evaluate and send out relevant ads to users.
The purpose of Facebook is clear- it wants to deliver customized and relevant ads to its users. But, is it legal to track browsing information even if the user does not consent to it, or far worse, have no idea about being tracked?
There is definitely the option of ‘opting out’, but unfortunately the entire web settings of Facebook is so immensely complicated that users have a hard time scouting through them and finally reaching the end-goal of opting out. Also, the social media platform does not give any choice to its users to prevent the company from tracking its geographical location or decide which ‘sponsored ad’ they would like to see.
The real jolt came when researchers opined that while opting-out, a user actually aids Facebook to place a long-term and uniquely identifying cookie on his/her computer for a span of two years! Yes, the idea of making the opting-out process more complicated rests on the shoulders of Facebook’s tracking purposes. However, the reports have concluded that Facebook places this opt-out cookie, called Datr, on computers of European users only. Such long-term cookie has not been identified in repeated tests on the US or Canadian versions. Why Facebook chose to place Datr on computers of European users is a mystery yet to be solved.
Read more Click here / www.advante360.com
Belgian Data Protection Agency (DPA) did a detailed research and concluded that Facebook tracks our browsing activities all the time irrespective of whether we are logged-in on the social media platform or not. It disclosed that users who do not have an account on Facebook are also tracked when they visit any website that is hosted on the facebook.com domain. It remains no secret that there are millions of websites with Facebook plug-ins that do not require you to sign-in or sign-up on Facebook to access it.
EU Privacy Law clearly notes that tracking information of users who have not given consent is unacceptable. There is no way Facebook can justify its tracking of user information who are not even using the social media platform.
Facebook updated its cookie policy this year. It states that they use cookies to track browsing information of users even if they are not on Facebook or have logged out. The social media giant says they do it to gather data, evaluate and send out relevant ads to users.
The purpose of Facebook is clear- it wants to deliver customized and relevant ads to its users. But, is it legal to track browsing information even if the user does not consent to it, or far worse, have no idea about being tracked?
The Culprit is “Like” button
The company tracks your activities via the “Like” button that is hosted on over a million of websites across the web. This does not mean that Facebook tracks only those users who click on the ‘like’ button. No, Facebook is not such a lame player! Rather, every time you visit a site that has the “like” button hosted on it, Facebook evidently gets the opportunity to track your browsing activities. It places cookies on your computer which allows it to garner all the relevant information it wants for its advertisement purpose even if you have logged-off from that site which allowed the company to place the cookies in the first place.There is definitely the option of ‘opting out’, but unfortunately the entire web settings of Facebook is so immensely complicated that users have a hard time scouting through them and finally reaching the end-goal of opting out. Also, the social media platform does not give any choice to its users to prevent the company from tracking its geographical location or decide which ‘sponsored ad’ they would like to see.
The real jolt came when researchers opined that while opting-out, a user actually aids Facebook to place a long-term and uniquely identifying cookie on his/her computer for a span of two years! Yes, the idea of making the opting-out process more complicated rests on the shoulders of Facebook’s tracking purposes. However, the reports have concluded that Facebook places this opt-out cookie, called Datr, on computers of European users only. Such long-term cookie has not been identified in repeated tests on the US or Canadian versions. Why Facebook chose to place Datr on computers of European users is a mystery yet to be solved.
Read more Click here / www.advante360.com
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