I know many of you are 'sold' on Facebook and assume that because you have enabled 'privacy' measures, your information is actually 'private'. It isn't.
Your demographics and web browsing are being tracked even after you leave FB, analyzed, sold and used for very sophisticated marketing analysis and targeting by paying advertisers. Your personal privacy is being sliced, diced, packaged and sold to the highest bidders in corporate marketing America. All they need is an IP address which is unique to your computer.
Companies pay Facebook big bucks to find out and zero in on what you are 'likely' to buy based upon marketing analysis of your web browsing habits (within FB community and beyond)... and your personal profiles and preferences, not to mention those of your 'friends', who are also specifically targeted every time you click a "Like" button, with no choice on their part to "opt out" of your target market profile.
It's marketing based upon a simple premise or two - - that birds of a feather, flock together and most people are 'followers' of the crowd. Sophisticated marketing techniques create demand from the targets (i.e. you) and if that's what you want, by all means, continue and enjoy. Marketers are counting on you liking the FB experience, to keep you engaged and under peer pressure, which makes their job much easier.
The real Facebook USERS are the paying advertisers who are reaping big benefits from harvesting your detailed information to lead you in their direction. Remember that NOTHING on the Internet is 'private' and that FB targets a captive (largely unsuspecting) audience, and YOU are part of it.
Watch the video and draw your own conclusions. It's your choice, of course. Just be informed and aware of how you are being used.
Facebook tracks you even after logging out.
From YouTube description...
Facebook tracks you even after logging out.
An Australian technologist has caused a global stir after discovering Facebook tracks the websites its users visit even when they are logged out of the social networking site.
Separately, Facebook's new Timeline feature, launched last week, has been inadvertently accessed by users early, revealing a feature that allows people to see who removed them from their friends' lists.
Facebook's changes - which turn profiles into a chronological scrapbook of the user's life - are designed to let its 800 million members share what they are reading, listening to or watching in real time. But they have been met with alarm by some who fear over-sharing.
Of course, Facebook's bottom line improves the more users decide to share. Reports suggest that Facebook staff refer internally to "Zuck's law", which describes Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's belief that every year people share twice as much online - a trend that has caused Facebook's valuation to skyrocket towards $US100 billion.
"Facebook is a lot more than a social network and ultimately wants to be the premier platform on which people experience, organise and share digital entertainment," said Ovum analyst Eden Zoller.
But in alarming new revelations, Wollongong-based Nik Cubrilovic conducted tests, which revealed that when you log out of Facebook, rather than deleting its tracking cookies, the site merely modifies them, maintaining account information and other unique tokens that can be used to identify you.
Whenever you visit a web page that contains a Facebook button or widget, your browser is still sending details of your movements back to Facebook, Cubrilovic says.
"Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit," Cubrilovic wrote in a blog post.
"The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions."
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