How does Facebook know which websites you visit ?

As mentioned most websites have Facebook/Google/Twitter integrated which allows them to farm all sorts of information, the internet is supposed to be decentralised but the Silicon Valley giants have done a good job of getting all of the smaller independent websites to connect to them.
 
chaparral said:
For some reason i feel that is so wrong..

They should have a button on the website you need to click to agree for them to be able to do stuff like this...
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Firefox defaults to blocking this sort of tracking, not sure about Chrome.

They probably know far more about what you're visiting than your ISP do, because all your ISP sees is a HTTPS connection to the root website, they don't know what pages on it you're visiting but Facebook do :o

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/k...ion-firefox-desktop?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
 
Josh said:
Duckduckgo.

Thank me later.
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It really doesn't matter what search engine you use.

There are tracking cookies, scripts, etc for hundreds of analytics services - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, yadda - on almost every single page today.
 
This is a differing opinion to many on here, but what exactly is the problem here?

I mean yeah, a supercomputer can log the names of the sites we visit and used that information to offer OP a 12% discount code if he wanted to buy something from one of them, many would call that helpful/useful. I could partially understand some embarrassment if it found a discount code for an adult website he visited (I say partially because it's an automated system, personally a supercomputer knowing what condoms I buy doesn't embarrass me in the slightest) but this is hardly Russian hackers reading our emails level of threat lol.

I mean yeah, it may have some subroutines to email the authorities if we access terrorist message boards or child porn site, but again I don't see that as a bad thing. Like with most "but muh privacy" arguments, don't do crime, won't have a problem.
 
tombrr said:
I'm with @ubersonic here, it's a very useful advert isn't it? So whats the _real_ problem here?
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Well, imagine if the govt demanded that they must know every page you visit, have transcripts of every conversation you make, etc.

I don't think people would be happy about it.

Most people wouldn't really be happy about the level of tracking that exists on the internet - if they were more aware of it, and the potential (potential) implications of this data existing and being shared for unknown purposes.

What if, for example, your insurance company used the details of your purchases to determine that you were a higher risk and therefore your premiums should increase?

The point is that nobody asks to use this data. They just use it. It's become the default, normal, status quo to allow companies to gather data, to track you across websites, and nobody ever asks if you're happy with that.

And it doesn't have to be anonymised. It can be linked to your Google account, your Facebook account, etc. At which point they know your name and whatever other details you've plugged into those systems. And then your shopping habits and everything else is linked to you, personally.
 
Don't the sites put code in also?
eg If I go and look at a monitor on OCUK I will see it on Facebook.
Today I have been looking at USB Audio Mixers and out of 10 sites I visited about 4 have ended up on my Timeline.
I followed a link to an electric scooter on here and that ended up on my Timeline.
 
One I find a bit more disturbing - I can tell what other people in my household are browsing for by the ads I get on Facebook (not everything just that they've googled for that item or related subject) - seems a bit dubious to me but far too many times I've had ads for very specific things that I certainly haven't been looking for but other people in my house have.
 
They are listening in too. You can be having a conversation with someone about something and next day see ads for it.
 
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