Why You Never Really Log Out of Facebook

[FourScore]

Why You Never Really Log Out of Facebook
By By Ryan Tate, Gawker
28 September 11

Facebook admits it went too far. The social network is quietly retracting a cookie that continued to report your Facebook user ID even after you "logged out" of the site. But it's not sorry about five other cookies that persist after you sign off. What, you didn't think Facebook would ever let you actually for real seriously 100 percent sign out, did you?

When Australian programmer Nik Cubrilovic first blogged on Sunday about how Facebook logout didn't seem to actually, uh, log out, the company went into damage control mode, insisting that "Facebook does not track users across the web," which was pretty funny given that Facebook has a tracking feature its CEO literally calls "Facebook Across the Web." The company also said, "logged out cookies ... are used for safety and protection ..."

SNIP

...But there are five other cookies that still remain after you "log out" of Facebook, and that stick around even after you restart your browser. Cubrilovic runs down what each of them is ostensibly for; Facebook says they, variously, track failed login attempts to thwart hackers, track new account creations to thwart spammers, track total logins to identify computers in internet cafés, remember your browser language, remember your device dimensions, and report the time, to the milisecond, of you last few browser requests, for performance reasons.

The problem is that, whatever it says about the intent behind these cookies, Facebook could be using - or decide in the future to use - some of them to track us for less noble reasons. The milisecond request log, for example, could be trivially traced back to a specific Facebook user using the company's server logs, as Cubrilovic points out. And given its long history of rolling back user privacy, do you really trust the social network? Cubrilovic:...

http://www.readersupportednews.org/news-section2/317-65/7621-focus-why-you-never-really-log-out-of-facebook

[drm604]

1. Delete your cookies after you log out.

[reACTIONary]

Disable cookies in your browser.

[postulater]

2. Did you ever try to shut down an account?

Almost impossible.

[monmouth]

3. I did and was told not to under any circumstances to even go near

the site. It took a year..Now I'm getting messages that so and so is trying to contact me, etc. I don't even go there when there's a link to check out.

[Warpy]

4. Every week there seems to be a new story that makes me feel glad

I'm in a group called The Order of the Socially Unfriended and Virtually Deleted. True story, obscure place.

I've seen too much drama to bother signing up for Facebook and knowing how it's being mined for personal information, I'm delighted I haven't.

[Snarkoleptic]

5. If you use Firefox, "BetterPrivacy" will delete LSO cookies.

There are the persistent cookies that remain even after deleting your browser cookie files.
I also recommend Advanced System Care 4, which is a free download on cnet.com.

Also, use ixquick.com for searches as they don't track you like google does.

Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data is recorded. Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that information in a giant database.

Those searches reveal a shocking amount of personal information about you, such as your interests, family circumstances, political leanings, medical conditions, and more. This information is modern-day gold for marketers, government officials, hackers and criminals - all of whom would love to get their hands on your private search data.


Why should you worry?
Major search engines have quietly amassed the largest database of personal information on individuals ever collected. Unfortunately, this data can all too easily fall into the wrong hands. Consider the following story:

In August 2006, the online world was jarred when AOL accidentally released three months' worth of aggregated search data from 650,000 of its users, publishing all the details in an online database.
That database is still searchable. It is an absolute eye-opener to see the potential for privacy nightmares.