Facebook's cookies
Let's say I'm having affairs with ten married women, two married men, and a couple of geese. Now, unrelated to these - and this is actual fact - I have only two Facebook friends, my friend Dave so that I can take part in turntable.fm, and my friend Tina so that I can read posts on The Campus Restaurant Revisited community (the Campus Restaurant was the long lost freak hangout across from my high school). Now, there's no crossover between those two sets of friends - my musicwrite world and my high school reminiscers - though I really hope that some of the latter will eventually enter the former world (esp. Tim Page, who's been publishing music criticism for longer than I have and has won a Pulitzer for it, Steve Nesselroth, John Freeman, who plays bass and lives in Chuck Eddy's part of Texas, and someone named Steve Gregoropoulos, whom I don't remember if I've ever met but he likes Britney's "I Wanna Go" and the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses"). But that fact is neither here nor there. What's directly pertinent is that none of the people in either of these two worlds, musicwrite and the Campus, have anything at all to do with the ten women, two men, and several geese I am having affairs with. And no one who has ever asked to friend me on Facebook, or has ever written me via Facebook, has anything to do with the ten women, two men, and assorted geese. Yet not only have all ten women as well as both men shown up in the constant barrage of "Add people you know" and "You may know this person" that Facebook is pelting me with, but their spouses and friends and spouses' friends have too. (Either the geese aren't on Facebook or they are but Facebook hasn't yet grown wise to them.)
So how does Facebook know I know them? I've never visited their Facebook pages. It's possible that some of them have visited mine, though I don't see how that's an indication that I know them, and my guess is that few of them actually have looked at my page anyway. And if that were a criterion (visiting my page) presumably the "You may know these people" would include more than one or two people I don't know from Adam (to cover people visiting by mistake or the occasional interested musiccrit fan who drops by just to see). Maybe several tried to make a friend request but discovered they couldn't (I've got it set up so that only friends of friends can make a friend request, and I'd disallow everyone from making a friend request if Facebook had that option. I'm basically not doing Facebook.) There's one obvious way that Facebook could know I know them: Facebook has tracked whom I've emailed. I'm not sure tracking my other Web activity would get this group of people, since they're part of my Denver world but not my Web world. But I don't know. It's a bit fucked.
Today's post was inspired by this New York Times story, Facebook's Use of Cookies Raises German Regulators' Suspicions.
Facebook, based in California, said in a statement that it "does not track users across the Web," and uses cookies to personalize content or for safety and security reasons.
The company said it deleted account-specific cookies when a user left Facebook and did not receive personally identifiable data when logged-out users browsed the Web.
So, assuming this is true (which I don't necessarily assume), does Facebook nonetheless receive personally identifiable data when logged-in users browse the Web, including data about Web use beyond Facebook? The previous statement would indicate "No," that Facebook does not track users across the Web at all, though of course I'm not assuming that that statement is correct. I'm not assuming it's incorrect either. I don't know.
EDIT: Kat points out in the comments that this actually has fuck all to do with cookies, is rather people willing to give up their address books or email activities to Facebook.
So how does Facebook know I know them? I've never visited their Facebook pages. It's possible that some of them have visited mine, though I don't see how that's an indication that I know them, and my guess is that few of them actually have looked at my page anyway. And if that were a criterion (visiting my page) presumably the "You may know these people" would include more than one or two people I don't know from Adam (to cover people visiting by mistake or the occasional interested musiccrit fan who drops by just to see). Maybe several tried to make a friend request but discovered they couldn't (I've got it set up so that only friends of friends can make a friend request, and I'd disallow everyone from making a friend request if Facebook had that option. I'm basically not doing Facebook.) There's one obvious way that Facebook could know I know them: Facebook has tracked whom I've emailed. I'm not sure tracking my other Web activity would get this group of people, since they're part of my Denver world but not my Web world. But I don't know. It's a bit fucked.
Today's post was inspired by this New York Times story, Facebook's Use of Cookies Raises German Regulators' Suspicions.
Facebook, based in California, said in a statement that it "does not track users across the Web," and uses cookies to personalize content or for safety and security reasons.
The company said it deleted account-specific cookies when a user left Facebook and did not receive personally identifiable data when logged-out users browsed the Web.
So, assuming this is true (which I don't necessarily assume), does Facebook nonetheless receive personally identifiable data when logged-in users browse the Web, including data about Web use beyond Facebook? The previous statement would indicate "No," that Facebook does not track users across the Web at all, though of course I'm not assuming that that statement is correct. I'm not assuming it's incorrect either. I don't know.
EDIT: Kat points out in the comments that this actually has fuck all to do with cookies, is rather people willing to give up their address books or email activities to Facebook.