How does Facebook know which websites you visit ?

Angilion · 12 May 2020 at 18:40

Django x2 said:
That's not it. It's simply a Facebook privacy setting buried deep in the profile settings called "Off Facebook Activity". It logs all the webpages you visit whilst you have a Facebook tab open.

I think it's worth noting that the setting on Facebook does not say these things:

1) That it only logs which webpages you visit.
2) That it only collects data about you from other sites while you have a Facebook tab open.
3) That changing that privacy setting in Facebook means that it stops collecting data about you from other sites.

I know that (1) is wrong. It collects far more data than that. Facebook is quite open about how much data the code on other pages collects - it's part of their advertising to businesses.
It would be silly for (2) to be right. Why would Facebook put so much effort into data-gathering and then ignore most of their opportunities to do so?
I see no reason why (3) would be right. The whole point of Facebook is to gather data - that's what its business is.

Pho · 12 May 2020 at 21:58

SexyGreyFox said:
Has said above on post 49, Facebook code is built into OCUK and millions of other sites.
You don't have to have Facebook.

Yeah I'm aware of that. To be fair I use uBlock Origin to block ads which I think blocks Facebook trackers anyway, and I also primarily use Firefox which blocks trackers as default nowadays anyway.

I write software for a living so I'm generally aware of the sort of stuff that goes off, being aware of it is the most important thing

Deleted member 77746 · 12 May 2020 at 22:03

SexyGreyFox said:
Has said above on post 49, Facebook code is built into OCUK and millions of other sites.
You don't have to have Facebook.

This shouldn't be allowed. You been tracked regardless of having an account on FB or not. I'm actually surprised this hasn't made up a bigger stink as of yet.

Theophany · 12 May 2020 at 22:30

mrbell1984 said:
This shouldn't be allowed. You been tracked regardless of having an account on FB or not. I'm actually surprised this hasn't made up a bigger stink as of yet.

This is what I was getting at before, it's screwed up beyond belief that the 'consumer' (lol, we're the product) has to work out all the ways to get out of these entangling nets.

My 90 year-old grandfather is a prolific interneter and despite all the adblockers and privacy fencers I put on his browser he is still inundated with crapware, spam emails and intrusive garbage on the internet.

Deleted member 77746 · 12 May 2020 at 22:59

Theophany said:
This is what I was getting at before, it's screwed up beyond belief that the 'consumer' (lol, we're the product) has to work out all the ways to get out of these entangling nets.

My 90 year-old grandfather is a prolific interneter and despite all the adblockers and privacy fencers I put on his browser he is still inundated with crapware, spam emails and intrusive garbage on the internet.

I got ya now... never knew what you meant. However, this is very serious of Facebook. I have no idea how someone should move forward battling a company like this been allowed to track like they are.

Rainmaker · 13 May 2020 at 02:30

Facebook is malware both technologically and psychologically speaking, and it's insidious. The best thing I ever did was ditch it.

For me it's uBlock Origin in hard mode with Fanboy's Social Blocklist (amongst others) + Privacy Possum in the browser, and DNS level blocking from AdGuardHome using the ABP format #1 blocklist from oisd.nl and AnudeepND's tracking list. I see no attempts to connect to Facebook on OcUK's pages, and they can't track me anywhere else, either.

If you're on Firefox, set its tracking protection to 'Strict' and, in about:config, set privacy.firstparty.isolate to true. Effectively, that will containerise every domain to only be able to access its own resources (cookies, localstorage etc). So if you're on overclockers.co.uk no other domain (eg Facebook, Criteo, Doubleclick, Tapfiliate or any of the other nasties it embeds) can see what's going on. Using uBlock Origin also stops you connecting to any bad third party domains to begin with.

A study on open source ad blockers was released a couple of weeks ago that showed that if everyone on the Internet used uBlock Origin to block ads, there'd be a global saving of almost $2 billion a year in electricity costs, just from not wasting electricity on loading trackers and ads. If that doesn't make your jaw drop, I don't know what will.

mrochester · 13 May 2020 at 06:28

Facebook and google are both the same in this regard. I use neither because of their shady business practices.

King4aDay · 13 May 2020 at 07:01

Rroff said:
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.

Yeah I've had this. Even to the point of getting FB ads for things my girlfriend bought on Amazon even though we weren't living together and weren't friends on FB it still knew we were spending time together!

Deleted member 77746 · 13 May 2020 at 08:17

You can see exactly what's been blocked with uBlock Origin and I suggest people install it on their browsers as soon as possible. It does stop a lot of things referencing Facebook.

Arcane · 13 May 2020 at 09:03

What I find quite odd is that I get served ads relating to mundane day-to-day stuff I've been searching for, say for example, a camouflage chainsaw case, but when I look for something a little more "grey area", say for example, a vaporiser, I get nothing. Seems some kind of moral guidance thing going on?

Angilion · 13 May 2020 at 10:27

King4aDay said:
Yeah I've had this. Even to the point of getting FB ads for things my girlfriend bought on Amazon even though we weren't living together and weren't friends on FB it still knew we were spending time together!

You probably both have mobile devices that constantly monitor and report their physical location, so it would be easy to determine how much time you (or, more precisely, your devices) spend together. Many mobile devices can also communicate with each other locally using ultrasound, which is being used for spying purposes. Her device would often be detecting your voice and vice versa. Not when you call each other, just when you're talking with each other. There would probably also be things like purchasing patterns (e.g. takeaway for two bought by you and delivered to her place or vice versa). Due to the enormous amount of data collected on an enormous amount of people, patterns are detectable and lots of information not directly taken by the spy companies can be determined from the data that is. Like, for example, the relationship between you and your girlfriend.

Big Brother was quite mediocre at spying on its subjects compared with the modern world.

mrochester · 13 May 2020 at 10:30

Angilion said:
You probably both have mobile devices that constantly monitor and report their physical location, so it would be easy to determine how much time you (or, more precisely, your devices) spend together. Many mobile devices can also communicate with each other locally using ultrasound, which is being used for spying purposes. Her device would often be detecting your voice and vice versa. Not when you call each other, just when you're talking with each other. There would probably also be things like purchasing patterns (e.g. takeaway for two bought by you and delivered to her place or vice versa). Due to the enormous amount of data collected on an enormous amount of people, patterns are detectable and lots of information not directly taken by the spy companies can be determined from the data that is. Like, for example, the relationship between you and your girlfriend.

Big Brother was quite mediocre at spying on its subjects compared with the modern world.

and some people welcome this surveillance because it gives them an offer code for 20% off... boggles my mind.

jpaul · 18 May 2020 at 11:56

Interesting bbc podcast on FB advert strategy --

different slant - premise that : FB AI functionality is training users to become more predictable in what they click on (to maximise advertising revenue) RIP freewill

Artificial intelligence pioneer Stuart Russell tells Helen Lewis how we can make AI human compatible, keep it under our control - and so stop it destroying the world.

Deleted member 77746 · 18 May 2020 at 12:10

People still don't give consent on some of the stuff that FB does. Nobody is fighting it though. Would rather have a discount.

mrochester · 18 May 2020 at 12:11

mrbell1984 said:
People still don't give consent on some of the stuff that FB does. Nobody is fighting it though. Would rather have a discount.

It’s funny how cheap people are! Always looking for the cheapest whatever.

Deleted member 77746 · 18 May 2020 at 12:12

mrochester said:
It’s funny how cheap people are! Always looking for the cheapest whatever.

We all know it's all about money.

jpaul · 18 May 2020 at 15:33

Angilion said:
Many mobile devices can also communicate with each other locally using ultrasound, which is being used for spying purposes

conspiracy theory .. but the new apple ultra wide band BT, unless defeatable, should help ... how did you navigate around the supermarket.

https://www.deviceinfo.me/ is interesting to see how much fingerprinting info you expose, even with ublock.

Rainmaker · 18 May 2020 at 15:52

jpaul said:
conspiracy theory ..

Nope. Nope. And nope again. There have even been ads on TV playing ultrasonic frequencies targeted at the accompanying phone app so they can track what you're watching and where you are outside the regular channels (eg if you have location services off).

Angilion · 18 May 2020 at 15:52

jpaul said:
conspiracy theory [..]

No, it isn't silly nonsense. It's a well publicised part of the capability of many devices and it has been proven to have been used for spying purposes. Official organisations such as the FTC in the USA don't issue formal warning letters to developers based on a "conspiracy theory".

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/pre...-letters-app-developers-using-silverpush-code

The company still exists and is still doing that (though devs in the USA probably aren't buying that particular software from that particular company any more) and it's far from the only one.

Deleted member 77746 · 18 May 2020 at 16:01

jpaul said:
conspiracy theory .. but the new apple ultra wide band BT, unless defeatable, should help ... how did you navigate around the supermarket.

https://www.deviceinfo.me/ is interesting to see how much fingerprinting info you expose, even with ublock.

Not much turns up on an iPhone but on windows 10 that’s a different story.