Facebook's Beacon Ad System Also Tracks Non-Facebook Users

[tuvor]

If you think that just because you have never signed up for Facebook you're immune to the tracking and collecting of user activities surrounding the popular social networking site, think again.

Facebook's controversial Beacon ad system tracks the activities of all users of its third-party partner sites, including people who have never signed up with Facebook or who have deactivated their accounts, CA (Computer Associates) has found.

Beacon captures detailed data on what users do on the external partner sites and sends it back to Facebook along with users' IP addresses, Stefan Berteau, senior research engineer at CA's Threat Research Group, said today in an interview.

This happens even if users delete the Facebook cookie. "The Facebook JavaScript is still called by the affiliate site, and the information is passed in," he says. In the case of users without accounts or with deactivated accounts, the data isn't tied to a Facebook ID, he says.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20071203/tc_pcworld/140247

[Joanne98]

1. Well isn't that a bitch!

[tuvor]

2. Kicking for the evening Facebook users. n/t