Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#61

Post by orijing » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:43 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #59

orijing wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook's track record seems to be to befuddle the user and trick or opt them into sharing things wider than they understand or want. Are you saying that the product designers at Facebook want to design interfaces and settings that intentionally confuse users into laxer privacy settings? Turning this discussion into a rather presumptuous smear at Facebook in the face of many privacy failures by Google is rather ch…

> Everything Facebook knows about me is something I or my friends entered (i.e. via tagging). No. If person x is logged into facebook, they (or rather you, as it seems you work for facebook) get an indication of every page person x is browsing that has a "like" button, whether that person presses it or not. Furthermore, even if you're logged out of facebook, there's still a couple of facebook cookies identifying the…

> No. If person x is logged into facebook, they (or rather you, as it seems you work for facebook) get an indication of every page person x is browsing that has a "like" button, whether that person presses it or not.

OK, fair enough. I meant the stuff I or my friends see. Facebook doesn't display a list of "pages that had like buttons that orijing visited but did not like" although that would be interesting.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#62

Post by blauwbilgorgel » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

rudiger wrote: post #30

Is there an open-source implementation of this two-click system for Facebook's Like button (and others like Google's +1 and Twitter's tweet button)?

I often use a simple (button image) link to twitter.com/share or facebook.com/sharer.php (now http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/dialogs/). That is one-click without javascript execution or, worse IMO, company custom html tags.

AFAIK Google+1 doesn't, as of yet, have such an URL where you can share. Sharing seems to go through the +1 button. I'd really like a share url for Google+ for technical and privacy reasons and keep everything one-click to share.

I bet you could make a two-click system for the Google+1 button, now asynchronous javaScript loading is enabled, but I don't know if that is within TOS. Again I would love a simple share link (like Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter) and be done with it.

I know that sharing on Facebook is different from liking, but I feel sharing is more valuable from a marketing POV.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#63

Post by mtogo » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:46 PM UTC

hautemechanic wrote: post #45

lliiffee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ghostery plugin can handle all this stuff easily.

Brian Kennish's disconnect extension/plugin for FF, Chrome, and Safari (available at http://disconnect.me/ ) very neatly does this for all of the major social networks.

Note: It doesn't work on Chrome, since Chrom(e|ium) is not capable of properly blocking requests. Ghostery also does the same but has a much (500+) larger blacklist of trackers.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#64

Post by mtogo » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:47 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #11

yuvadam wrote: post #4

Friendly reminder, blocking all and any of Facebook's pre-click tracking measures can be implemented easily in AdBlock Plus (or any equivalent ad blocker) with the following rules: ||facebook.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||facebook.net^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||fbcdn.com^$domain=~facebook.com|~facebook.net|~fbcdn.com|~fbcdn.net ||fbcdn.net^$domain=~fa…

Also worth noting that Firefox users who prefer the idea of whitelisting cross-site requests rather than blacklisting them, can install RequestPolicy.

If you don't like the annoyance of RequestPolicy you can also use Ghostery (avail on FF, Opera, Safari) which blocks a specific blacklist of trackers.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#65

Post by beagle3 » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #35

This is a non-story for the reasons stated but a story for other reasons. It's standard that widget publishers require to use their widget "as is". That's basically what Facebook is saying. Not only do you not know what any custom modifications will necessarily do but it's a completely valid argument that you want a consistent user experience with your widget. As for user tracking, this is basically an inevitable byp…

(copying and extending myself from another reply in this thread, because it is actually more relevant here:)

The copyright issue is a red herring. Facebook could create an official "data:..."-url based "like" button that has the original image instead of linking to their server. It would be better for everyone involved, including facebook's bandwidth and the site's loading speed -- except that facebook would lose their tracking data.

The other thing that they would be unable to do would be to change the look of the image (because it would be _in_ the link); but I think it is a good thing that they (or a hacker) can't put a penis on every page that has a like button.

Really, the copyright thing is a PR deflection, not the real issue.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#66

Post by beagle3 » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 6:53 PM UTC

orijing wrote: post #61

beagle3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything Facebook knows about me is something I or my friends entered (i.e. via tagging). No. If person x is logged into facebook, they (or rather you, as it seems you work for facebook) get an indication of every page person x is browsing that has a "like" button, whether that person presses it or not. Furthermore, even if you're logged out of facebook, there's still a couple of facebook cookies identifying the…

> No. If person x is logged into facebook, they (or rather you, as it seems you work for facebook) get an indication of every page person x is browsing that has a "like" button, whether that person presses it or not. OK, fair enough. I meant the stuff I or my friends see. Facebook doesn't display a list of "pages that had like buttons that orijing visited but did not like" although that would be interesting.

> OK, fair enough. I meant the stuff I or my friends see.

This is so very different from

> Everything Facebook knows about me is something I or my friends entered (i.e. via tagging).

As to be irrelevant - I don't have a single status update or biographic detail in my facebook account, and I remove tags of me from pictures -- and yet, facebook has a damn good idea of the websites I browsed before installing ghostery.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#67

Post by JoshTriplett » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 7:17 PM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #34

mypov wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to add that contrary to your impression we too value privacy in USA.

Consider the massive usage of Facebook and Twitter, the lack of outrage over the warrantless wiretapping scandal (running for 10.5 years now), easily available voter records (see e.g. the backstory behind Latanya Sweeney's original identifiability study), and lack of public comments about requiring ISPs to store all session information for a long time - I would say that is strong evidence that USA as a nation does no…

Please don't equate a lack of change with a lack of outrage; that assumes we have the ability to fix things here just by getting outraged about them. I'd say "if only it were that easy", except that many of the broken things that need fixing exist due to supposed outrage/fear.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#68

Post by yason » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 7:18 PM UTC

What are web browsers doing by sharing this accidental data between 3rd party sites anyway?

The default setting ought to be that connections to 3rd party sites are done in incognito mode. This would disallow tracking by looking up the referer and sites like Facebook couldn't also tell who's login cookies the browser is storing. You could then whitelist connections on a per-site basis.

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#69

Post by slowpoke » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 7:32 PM UTC

Xuzz wrote: post #19

Before we spend too much time attacking Facebook over this, let's try and think of possible reasons why this might be not an "evil" move. No need to go out of our way to conclude "omg they're evil stealing our privacy". Firstly, what if they just don't want to confuse users? I see people confused all the time of when you need to click and when you need to double-click, every time I see someone using the computer — I'…

  I just like to try and see both sides of something like this.

While I can certainly agree to that general notion, in Facebook's case that's simply a bit too stretched. I find it pretty hard - if not impossible - to assume honest intentions regarding these cases from a corporations whose founder openly opposes privacy and considers it "obsolete".

Re: Facebook doesn't like privacy countermeasures

#70

Post by magicalist » Sat, Sep 03, 2011, 7:36 PM UTC

mtogo wrote: post #63

hautemechanic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brian Kennish's disconnect extension/plugin for FF, Chrome, and Safari (available at http://disconnect.me/ ) very neatly does this for all of the major social networks.

Note: It doesn't work on Chrome, since Chrom(e|ium) is not capable of properly blocking requests. Ghostery also does the same but has a much (500+) larger blacklist of trackers.

I don't believe that has been true for a long time now.

I have disconnect installed, and, looking at the source, it checks a resource's URL on a beforeload event, and cancels the load if the domain has a match on the blacklist. Where is the problem?