<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nBlurr had this<\/a> to say in the comments the other day:<\/p>\n I am very much against Facebook integration on other websites. I know I can't be the only one. I tried a while ago to figure out how to block Facebook when I'm not on the main Facebook website, but couldn't find anything.<\/p>\n My concern is that because this “like” link appears on blogs all over the place, Facebook can get a pretty good idea of my browsing habits. I am against this on principle.<\/p>\n It also seems to me that very few people use the like button.<\/p>\n I have been a reader since near the beginning of DMotR. Your website is one of the few that I have white-listed in ad-block (though sometimes ads don't load anyway :S ). Please remove this terrible thing from your blog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My first reaction was that this was a bit paranoid. I was sure the button wouldn’t do anything unless you pushed it. It turns out that no, that is not the case. In fact, Facebook keeps track of where it sees you. If a page has a Facebook button on it, then Facebook knows you were on that page<\/a>. We don’t know what they do with that info, but we know they have it. Here’s the thing:<\/p>\n The problem is with web cookies. A cookie is a small text file created by your web browser. It stores “name \/ value pairs”, which is fancy programmer talk for stuff like this:<\/p>\n It lets websites store information on your<\/em> computer. These files are keyed to the domain name. So, Facebook can only read cookies created by your visit to Facebook.com and The Escapist can only see inside of cookies created by your visit to escapistmagazine.com. The information contained in a cookie is sent when you visit a site. So, if I previously visited Facebook on this computer, it will send my Facebook cookie, which will let Facebook have my name and (if I so choose) password. That way I don’t have to log in every time I visit the site, and it can know ahead of time if I want the lightweight mobile version of the page or the all-singing, all-dancing, graphic-heavy full version. If I go to another computer, it won’t have a Facebook cookie on it, and so I’ll have to type in my name & password to log in. <\/p>\n Even if I tell FB not to save my password, it still saves my username. That username gets sent when I load the page, even if I’m not logged in. See, that little button at the bottom of this page is actually a little sub-webpage. It’s a little window with a Facebook page inside of it. (Same goes for the ads on the right. That’s a sub-window with a Google page inside of it.) When you visited this page, your Facebook.com cookie (assuming you have one) was sent to Facebook. Facebook sees your username, and because of how HTTP headers work, it also sees that you visited from shamusyoung.com. Ergo, Facebook knows you were here. Of course, this only applies to webpages with Facebook features. Facebook has no way of seeing where else you might go.<\/p>\n It’s important to point out that this is not some nefarious new thing Facebook is doing. Everyone uses cookies. This site remembers the name you use in the comments because that stuff is stored in a shamusyoung.com cookie on your computer. Google uses them. Battle.net uses them. Blogger.com. My Space. Youtube. The Escapist. Google. Yahoo. Blogspot. Wikipedia. Twitter. Anywhere that you log in knows at least your username and the last time you visited.<\/p>\n The reason people get worked up about Facebook is because it’s so ubiquitous. (And because the founder of Facebook is reportedly a complete douche.) Nobody cares about Yahoo cookies because Yahoo isn’t lurking in the corner of every page on the web. The problem isn’t that Facebook is more hostile to privacy than other sites, it’s that Facebook naturally has access to data that other sites don’t, because they’re less popular.<\/p>\n You can decide for yourself how much this bothers you. Some people won’t stand for it because they’re concerned about privacy. Some people won’t stand for it because they’re paranoid cranks. Some people don’t care because they’re not concerned about the data involved. Some people don’t care because they’re oblivious. There are reasonable people and morons on both sides of this. <\/p>\n If you’re really concerned about this, there are things you can do. You can set your cookies to be deleted every time you close your web browser. It will make it impossible for Facebook to see where you are, even when visiting sites like this one.<\/p>\nusername=PresidentSkroob
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\nlast_visit=March 24, 2011
\nmobile_user=no<\/code><\/p>\n
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