I use Chrome, and you know how in the bottom left of the window it shows the URLs that are being processed while one goes from page to page? It says, “Sending request,” or “Waiting for…” etc., and you can see some specific addresses. Well, when I’m reading the L.A. Times and use the “back” button (or Alt-left arrow) it usually shows “Waiting for www.facebook.com.” I’m not using Facebook when this hapens; I’m not actively logged in to Facebook, as far as I know. Even so, why would it be checking Facebook and not, say, my web-based email?
They have a Facebook plug-in on their site. Look at the section called L.A. Times On Facebook. It is loading all of that info from facebook.com
To expand on what **Crazyhorse **said…my local newspaper does the same thing.
If I’m at home and logged into Facebook, it shows me a frame of friends of mine who like various articles, or the entire paper. If I’m home and not logged into Facebook, I get the same frame, but with pseudo-random people who I (usually) don’t know.
Note that closing your Facebook window is NOT the same as logging out.
If I’m at the office, where Facebook is blocked, the page loads a little slower due to retries, and eventually gives me an error in that frame, with the rest of the page working.
-D/a
This is why I left Facebook after 6 and a half years. Initially and for the first 4 years it was a fun isolated place, but once they increased their ownership on my data, I pulled all of mine off. The last straw was their telling me what my friends liked on CNN, etc. I don’t trust them keeping things private. Initially I made a browser just for Facebook but the hassle made me rarely use it and so off I logged. BTW, Zuckerberg’s account got hacked this past week, so its not like their security is particularly difficult to overcome.
All that stuff is easily shut off in your privacy options. And you shouldn’t have real information on your Facebook. All it has is my name, birthdate, and email address. And always, always log out.
IOW, I only let Facebook have what little information I want it to have, and keep it very locked down. Do that, and everything’s fine. Although I do wonder what happened to that open source alternative.
I’m sure Zuckerman doesn’t have any useful information on his, either.
(I am hoping that NoScript will add the ability to block third party scripts separately from first party ones. I trust Facebook enough when I’m actively using it, but not when I’m on some other page. I don’t know if the privacy setting will always be there.)
This pic may help illustrate the OPs question. I don’t know about Chrome but this junk can be blocked with other browsers.
Yes, people get all freaked out by what Facebook does with your info…Well, why the hell do you put it on there, then? Your ex/now-stalker finds out the clubs you go to? Why are you listing them in your Facebook profile? Are you shocked that your boss caught you flipping off the company logo in a photo? Why did you put it on there? Your father sees you rolling on the floor drunk out of your mind in a party picture? Why the hell…
Oh, never mind.
Does that frame show friends who deliberately clicked “I like this article” and who (presumably) could have used their privacy options to prevent distribution of that information?
Or does that frame show friends who clicked on that article and were interested in reading it? That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that the privacy options would be able to keep a lid on.
I remember it showing people who like the paper itself…not the individual article.
But apparently I’m so tuned out of the ads and other sections that I don’t notice it at all. I just loaded the page and checked a few stories, and can’t find any Facebook links. And I’m currently logged into Facebook.
I’ll try to remember to monitor it for a few days and see if it comes back.
-D/a
NoScript will block such nonsense if desired (FB is on my blacklist).
Not sure if Safari on the PC has the same plugin, but on the Mac, there’s a plugin called Ghostery. In fact, there may even be a FireFox and Chrome plug in too.
Ghostery shows you the various pixels and script and reports them to you. When you go to the LA Times website, you’ll see special callbacks on the site for CheckM8, Doubleclickmore, Facebook, Traffic Marketplace, Enquisite, Tacoda, Omniture, Revenue Science, Google Adsense, and Chartbeat. Many of these companies are there to track your usage from site to site. For example, if you’re logged into Facebook, Facebook knows almost all of the webpages you visit thanks to these little scripts.
By the way, Ghostery can block many of these scripts to prevent them from reporting you back to their leader. The only problem is that sometimes certain things (like video) don’t work because the video is actually stored on one of the reporting sites.
Can you explain how, exactly?
I use FB, but do not want and have never ever used any of this “sharing” crap that is on news sites/blogs, etc. I have all FB apps blocked. Many sites “complain” to me that since I have turned off some FB “platform” that, oh poor me, I am missing out on…whatever.
I am concerned, though, about how these news sites/blogs “know” I am a FB user, is that just b/c the FB cookies are on the browser from that session?
And yes, the ubiquitous FB nags and buttons all over the internet are obnoxious. I try to set Firefox Adblock filters for it, but not sure which ones would get rid of it and which might screw up my actual FB use. Any advice?