the hidden side of facebook privacy settings?

[5co77ie]

I'm wondering if this latest admission from Facebook might be a nail in its coffin.

Anyone that uses the site has probably noticed that it now tells folks (thanks to timeline) all the videos you watch on youtube and the music you're listening to even when you're not on facebook. seems Facebook has been doing this for sometime:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/221332/20110928/facebook-tracking-data-members-users.htm

Outed by an Australian blogger, Facebook has admitted to tracking the data of its users by watching the Web pages visited by its members, even after they have logged out.

In the latest privacy blunder, the social network says the breach was a mistake. It occurred due to software that automatically downloaded to users' computers; when users logged in to Facebook data was 'inadvertently' sent to the company, whether they were logged in at the time, The Daily Mail reported.

"Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit," said Australian blogger, Nik Cubrilovick, who discovered the privacy breach and wrote about it in his blog. Cubrilovick pointed out that Facebook cookies remain active after sign-out, which, he says, defeats the purpose of logging out of Facebook.

[t8yman]

i sacked fb off a coupla months ago, havent missed it once.

[Ed209]

It only tells other users what videos and music your watching/listening if you've set it up to tell other people, right?

However i do think the new news tracker on the top right telling everyone whos pages/photos I have commented on is total bullshit. Anyone know if it is possible to change settings so that you don't let other users see this information? I cant see it anywhere.

As to being a nail in facebook's coffin? I doubt it. The story will be forgotten and 750million people will still use facebook.

Edited September 28, 2011 by Ed209

[5co77ie]

I've stopped using spotify as i can't seem to turn the 'TELL EVERYONE WHAT YOU'RE LISTENING TO' function off! any ideas?

[eFestivals]

and 750million people will still use facebook.

What you mean is...

750M will still have facebook accounts, while less than 10% actually use them.

It's a big difference, and a HUGE lie that will make them very rich.

[rabid]

It only tells other users what videos and music your watching/listening if you've set it up to tell other people, right?

However i do think the new news tracker on the top right telling everyone whos pages/photos I have commented on is total bullshit. Anyone know if it is possible to change settings so that you don't let other users see this information? I cant see it anywhere.

[5co77ie]

As to being a nail in facebook's coffin? I doubt it. The story will be forgotten and 750million people will still use facebook.

[Jackmypie]

Yeah I think for it to show what video's you have been watching you need to link your youtube account to your facebook account then turn on the option somewhere. Same as spotify, when I played songs on spotify it didn't come up on facebook.

[Ed209]

I seem to remember people saying the same about that other site.... called... myspace, remember that?

[Ed209]

Nothing has actually changed but you can change your settings

[eFestivals]

That was more down to myspace just being shit, rather than anything else.

It was more down to myspace being a passing fad, rather than anything else.

I wonder what's next?

[Ed209]

It was more down to myspace being a passing fad, rather than anything else.

I wonder what's next?

[gooner1990]

What I don't understand is why they think we need to know about John Smith has commented on Joe Bloggs status?

Really couldn't care less!

[eFestivals]

Not sure I agree. The fad is social networking, the rise of facebook runs in nice correlation with the decline of myspace. Its not that people stopped being interested in what myspace were doing, it was just that facebook did it better. I think social networking, in various shapes and forms will be with us for a while. Who will be the suppliers of that engine is what might rise and fall. Could Google + be the downfall of facebook? Its possible. Google have a history of doing things very well. I think social networking is with us for a long time to come.

socxial netwirks is what we do.

But all the while there's people thinking that they'd rather do networking for specific things at specific places, rather than all on facebook - and why shouldn't they? Facebook and its successors will always do a poor job at trying to be all things to all people - so that facebook doesn't encompass everything, then it's a flawed model for meeting its full aims.

If someone isn't on facebook, do you contact them by other means? Cos if you do, then it's easier to contact everyone away from facebook than some on one and some on another, and facebook ceases to be particularly useful.

Or alternatively, the world will be full of arseholes with only facebook friends. That'll kill it if nothing else does.

Facebook isn't really doing anything different to systems available 25+ years ago - and it has to be said, those things were more ultimately useful. But that aside, they were more proportionately encompassing than facebook ever will be, and yet they still failed.

And simpler still: it's a fashion. Fashions come and then they ....?

Whichever way you look at it it's doomed.

[rexclark]

Can't say I'm a huge fan of the changes to facebook but I'm not too fussed. I have noticed quite a few folk quitting facebook for Google+ but I guess only time will tell which one will be more popular.

[Katster]

I don't understand why I should care if facebook knows I have watched Charlie bit my finger?

[Istari]

It only tells other users what videos and music your watching/listening if you've set it up to tell other people, right?

However i do think the new news tracker on the top right telling everyone whos pages/photos I have commented on is total bullshit. Anyone know if it is possible to change settings so that you don't let other users see this information? I cant see it anywhere.

[Ed209]

Cheers, but its not the fact its visible which is annoying me (although it is messy), its the fact if I can't have control over what is published on there. If someones photo has privacy settings set to "friends of friends" for example, and I comment on it, then everyone sees that I've commented on it, and there's no way to stop that, which is bullcrap!

[Ed209]

socxial netwirks is what we do.

But all the while there's people thinking that they'd rather do networking for specific things at specific places, rather than all on facebook - and why shouldn't they? Facebook and its successors will always do a poor job at trying to be all things to all people - so that facebook doesn't encompass everything, then it's a flawed model for meeting its full aims.

If someone isn't on facebook, do you contact them by other means? Cos if you do, then it's easier to contact everyone away from facebook than some on one and some on another, and facebook ceases to be particularly useful.

Or alternatively, the world will be full of arseholes with only facebook friends. That'll kill it if nothing else does.

Facebook isn't really doing anything different to systems available 25+ years ago - and it has to be said, those things were more ultimately useful. But that aside, they were more proportionately encompassing than facebook ever will be, and yet they still failed.

And simpler still: it's a fashion. Fashions come and then they ....?

Whichever way you look at it it's doomed.

[rabid]

Cheers, but its not the fact its visible which is annoying me (although it is messy), its the fact if I can't have control over what is published on there. If someones photo has privacy settings set to "friends of friends" for example, and I comment on it, then everyone sees that I've commented on it, and there's no way to stop that, which is bullcrap!

[Ed209]

I don't get you. That's the way Facebook works, obviously hasn't bothered you before now.

[eFestivals]

I was 4 years old in 1986 so you'll have to remind me what these systems were 25 years ago which allowed you to network with people around the world at the touch of a button when no one had the internet in their homes.

CompuServe. It did much the same thing.

Tho there were less photos of cats.

Yeah, I contact people via email and phone mainly, because i cant rely on everyone having checked their facebook, but I still think that an online portal whereby you can share photos, links, thoughts and opinions etc and follow bands, venues, etc is here to stay. How it carries on into the future is a different matter. But I refuse to believe that in 20 years time this kind of thing won't exist on the internet.

You can do all that stuff on a normal website. You don't need a 3rd party social network to do it.

But anyway .... something like Facebook might well exist in 20 years. It might even still be Facebook itself. But when the history of the internet gets written, Facebook won't be deserving of its own chapter, tho it might just make the major heading in the chapter marked 'fads'.

I've had this same conversation about MySpace since I've been running efests, and all you're saying now about Facebook are all the same things that was said of MySpace. And I was wrong that time too apparently.

Edited September 29, 2011 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

I don't like the term fad... It doesn't really describe what Facebook is... Its a tool... and like all tools it will eventually be replaced by a new tool, or it will keep getting upgrades and remain relevant...

It isn't a fad to be social... or to have social network... That's a huge part of everyone life!

It wasn't a fad to use Betamax / VHS / DVD... They where the tools for the job and over time we got new tools...

For some people it's a tool. For most who use it it's a toy. That's a big part of why it'll fail.

At the point Facebook started and fior a long while afterwards it was no better a tool than myspace, and of course the absence of people on Facebook made it a useless tool. So on the basis of it's usefulness as a tool it would have never got off the ground if just a tool.

It's not faddish to be within a social network. As I said earlier, it's what we do.

But that doesn't stop Facebook being a fad.

[worm]

Not sure I agree. The fad is social networking, the rise of facebook runs in nice correlation with the decline of myspace. Its not that people stopped being interested in what myspace were doing, it was just that facebook did it better. I think social networking, in various shapes and forms will be with us for a while. Who will be the suppliers of that engine is what might rise and fall. Could Google + be the downfall of facebook? Its possible. Google have a history of doing things very well. I think social networking is with us for a long time to come.

[eFestivals]

Correct.

It's no more likely to be correct this time around than it was with MySpace.

The demise of MySpace and rise of Facebook had very little to do with the features of each, and almost everything to do with the age of the people who used them, and fashion driven by that.

While 'social networking' of some kind will always remain a part of what humans do, the desire to do your whole life online in the way that Facebook (and now Google+) encourages isn't something that will last.

The 'tool' side of things is what people really want, and Facebook is bettered by the already-existing for that side of things and always will be, because by trying to be all things to all people it succeeds in doing nothing of that 'tool' side particularly well. It didn't take off because its tools were hugely useful, it took off because it became it was fashionable just as MySpace did.