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Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

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Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#2
So it appears the problem has more to do P3P rather than anyone else. I wonder how many other websites out there just send out the "required for cookies to work" P3P headers regardless of what they do with the data they collect (i 've blindly copy-pasted such headers in the past, but then again i don't abuse or pass along any private information to third parties). Of course, relying on websites' good faith to report what they plan to do with your data was a false assumption to begin with.

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#3
> Microsoft explicitly called out Google for their behaviour but either neglected to mention or didn't investigate Facebook (skeptics may believe that this is because of Microsoft's shareholding in Facebook and their partnerships in search and advertising)

I have trouble believing that they didn't check any other websites when they were preparing that blog post (and facebook would be the obvious next choice to test), but another reason not to mention facebook may be that not many people would notice the effect of the doubleclick cookie's absence in the ads that they see, but most people who use Like buttons (and facebook embeds, etc) would notice when they suddenly stopped working.

So if people did use that new IE9 blocking feature with the suggested addition of google, and then facebook and all the sites found here were added too...you'd get the theoretical hit to facebook revenue, yes, but you'd get the definite hit of users all thinking your browser is broken because it won't load Facebook anywhere but facebook.com. Imagine those support tickets.

(I believe this kind of interaction is almost the exact reason Mozilla decided not to block third party cookies by default and why Apple decided to add the exceptions in Safari...someone posted a bug earlier with an Apple engineer arguing for the exceptions specifically because of Facebok and Microsoft Live logins, among other things).

edit: the bug was in comments on the ars coverage: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35824

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#4

> Microsoft explicitly called out Google for their behaviour but either neglected to mention or didn't investigate Facebook (skeptics may believe that this is because of Microsoft's shareholding in Facebook and their partnerships in search and advertising) I have trouble believing that they didn't check any other websites when they were preparing that blog post (and facebook would be the obvious next choice to test),…

On the other hand, given that for a large set of content publishers Adwords provides a substantial revenue stream that will suddenly deplete. And given that this would probably be a larger hit to their pockets, the number of people who are actually in trouble would be larger in case Google cookies are blocked. I think # of support tickets, if that is a parameter we are judging the effect with, would be larger for this case.

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#5

> Microsoft explicitly called out Google for their behaviour but either neglected to mention or didn't investigate Facebook (skeptics may believe that this is because of Microsoft's shareholding in Facebook and their partnerships in search and advertising) I have trouble believing that they didn't check any other websites when they were preparing that blog post (and facebook would be the obvious next choice to test),…

On the other hand, given that for a large set of content publishers Adwords provides a substantial revenue stream that will suddenly deplete. And given that this would probably be a larger hit to their pockets, the number of people who are actually in trouble would be larger in case Google cookies are blocked. I think # of support tickets, if that is a parameter we are judging the effect with, would be larger for thi…

ah, I was thinking more about pitchfork wielding users deciding whether or not to switch browsers (depending on how hard Microsoft pushed the blacklist additions, that could lose a few market share percentage points in a day or two), but based on the support ticket metric, that's a really good point.

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#6
Follow the link that facebook provides in its header: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=219494461411349

It's very interesting. They straight out say P3P is a dead protocol. And from the explanation of how it works, it does seem to be a joke - trusting third party websites to honor user privacy ? seriously ? I think Microsoft is simply trying to raise a shit storm over nothing... at least Safari one is a real screw-up on Google's part...

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#7

So it appears the problem has more to do P3P rather than anyone else. I wonder how many other websites out there just send out the "required for cookies to work" P3P headers regardless of what they do with the data they collect (i 've blindly copy-pasted such headers in the past, but then again i don't abuse or pass along any private information to third parties). Of course, relying on websites' good faith to report…

So you feel that it's kind of like asking a used-car salesman if it's a good car?

Most people trust Google and Facebook. They don't really care about cookies so long as it works. The trust has already been established by the brand.

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#8
Sorry but this is insane.

The real question is why is IE allowing Facebook, Google and others to bypass its privacy controls? Maybe beacause IE is not that secure. If your software have security problems, please fix those problems instead of complaining that others are exploiting them.

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#9
post #6

Follow the link that facebook provides in its header: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=219494461411349 It's very interesting. They straight out say P3P is a dead protocol. And from the explanation of how it works, it does seem to be a joke - trusting third party websites to honor user privacy ? seriously ? I think Microsoft is simply trying to raise a shit storm over nothing... at least Safari one is a real screw-u…

Is it a joke to expect Google to honor user privacy?

Re: Facebook and many other sites also bypass Internet Explorer privacy controls

#10

Sorry but this is insane. The real question is why is IE allowing Facebook, Google and others to bypass its privacy controls? Maybe beacause IE is not that secure. If your software have security problems, please fix those problems instead of complaining that others are exploiting them.

P3P is based on trust. If Facebook and Google don't want to support it then they should ignore it rather than subvert it.
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