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Why staying logged in to your FB/Twitter is dangerous
finance.yahoo.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870428150457632...
While, I usually logout of FB or Twitter, I have a few adblock rules to block them on other webpages. It works fairly well... If I want to like and share, I believe I can do it manually...
The like/comment/etc. 'widgets' are served from facebook.com, so presumably they are still tracking me.
Don't know why this article didn't mention Ghostery or http://disconnect.me
It's not really "dangerous", it is just that you give a bit more information to FB/Twitter/$SocialCompany than you thought you would. While, I usually logout of FB or Twitter, I have a few adblock rules to block them on other webpages. It works fairly well... If I want to like and share, I believe I can do it manually...
The first thing I did when Facebook rolled out all of that garbage was redirect everything facebook related to localhost and then created adblock/element rules to filter out all twitter and facebook buttons, tags, etc. I even filter out the whole "facebook discussions" crap that are attached to seemingly 80% of pages, these days.
Then again, I guess the public lags behind such things. I'm sure there are people out there just today learning what a cookie is, so . . . ~shrug~
They couldn't have published a more obvious story. Anyone with any sense doesn't log into either service and you don't need to be logged into either service for them to track you. It's amazing what freely available information (your IP, the sites you visit, etc) can do to help turn you from an aggregate anonymous identity into a fairly well "guessed" identity. And since webmasters carelessly litter their sites with t…
This doesn't seem to be the full story. If I log out of FB I still have multiple cookies for the .facebook.com domain (e.g., c_user, which seems to contain my user id). The like/comment/etc. 'widgets' are served from facebook.com, so presumably they are still tracking me. Don't know why this article didn't mention Ghostery or http://disconnect.me
In that case there will be guaranteed no cookie cross-pollution as the sites are completely isolated from each other.
Just logging out is indeed simply ineffective.
This doesn't seem to be the full story. If I log out of FB I still have multiple cookies for the .facebook.com domain (e.g., c_user, which seems to contain my user id). The like/comment/etc. 'widgets' are served from facebook.com, so presumably they are still tracking me. Don't know why this article didn't mention Ghostery or http://disconnect.me
You could also use multiple profiles (at least in Firefox), one for browsing around and one for social network sites. In that case there will be guaranteed no cookie cross-pollution as the sites are completely isolated from each other. Just logging out is indeed simply ineffective.
Another option would be to install a second browser and use it solely for FB/Twitter.
They couldn't have published a more obvious story. Anyone with any sense doesn't log into either service and you don't need to be logged into either service for them to track you. It's amazing what freely available information (your IP, the sites you visit, etc) can do to help turn you from an aggregate anonymous identity into a fairly well "guessed" identity. And since webmasters carelessly litter their sites with t…
Yeah, most people would think that those buttons on the sites they've visited won't do anything unless they click on it. So yes, this is an obvious story to some, but also a "why didn't I think of that!" moment for the rest. just sayin. ;)