Facebook even tracks non-users

Published Apr 1, 2015

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London – Facebook is tracking the internet searches of people who are not even its customers, it was claimed last night.

The technology company is allegedly using ‘cookies’ – online tracking data – to collect information about the activities of everyone visiting a website that features a Facebook button.

The buttons are on more than 13 million sites, including those run by the government and the National Health Service.

They allow users to ‘like’ a website or ‘share’ a link to it on their own Facebook page.

According to researchers in Belgium, the US firm can gather information about an internet user regardless of whether they actually click the Facebook button or have a Facebook account.

The company plants a tracking cookie on a user’s computer whenever they visit a website hosted on facebook.com, such as a page for a friend’s birthday party or a fan page for a celebrity.

After that, any web page they visit that features a Facebook button will relay information back to the firm.

Privacy campaigners accused Facebook of forgetting that people are private citizens, rather than money-making machines.

‘It is staggering and disappointing that Facebook feels the need to track non-Facebook users, people who don’t want to interact with the social platform,’ said Renate Samson, of Big Brother Watch. ‘Just because internet companies can do something doesn’t mean that they should.’

Bernhard Schima, a lawyer for the European Commission, said last week that people should close their Facebook accounts if they wanted to ensure that US security services are not spying on their information.

Big Brother Watch said this advice did not go far enough because the only way to ensure privacy was to stay offline.

Cookies are used to save time logging into websites, but they also gather information about user behaviour that can help prepare targeted adverts.

According to BBC News reports Facebook says the allegations, which were made by Belgian researchers at the University of Leuven and the Free University of Brussels, contained ‘factual inaccuracies’.

“The authors have never contacted us, nor sought to clarify any assumptions upon which their report is based. Neither did they invite our comment on the report before making it public,” a spokesman for the social media giant reportedly claimed.

“However, we remain willing to engage with them and hope they will be prepared to update their work in due course,” the spokesman for Facebook added.

Daily Mail

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