
Why I quit Facebook - kevinburke
http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/cancel-your-facebook/
======
Xuzz
_I don't have to worry about Facebook selling my browser history._

Well, no, you don't when you have an account either. Facebook might save your
browsing history of pages with Facebook widgets, but they aren't going to sell
this. (They probably will use it for more targeted advertising, but isn't this
exactly what AdWords is? This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at
least, is what enables the internet.)

Facebook isn't going to sell your personal info to advertisers. Just accept
it, move on, and complain about other issues that actually do exist.

~~~
gldalmaso
>> _but they aren't going to sell this_

Maybe they won't per se, but they are still the holders of all that data, and
that data is worth a lot to a lot of people, not all of them have ill intent,
but some have, or might come along anytime in the future. Then suddenly you
are exposed to the wrong people just because you wanted share your social life
_with your friends_ (not the world).

>> _This kind of profiling and advertising, to me, at least, is what enables
the internet._

The _internet_ is not for-profit.

Maybe what you meant wast that it is what enables companies to offer free web
services for the end users and still be for-profit. Though they seldom really
disclose the privacy cost to the end user.

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Yhippa
What this guy wrote seems very honest and his reasons are aligned with why I
would quit Facebook. I would love to know if people who have tried it ended up
going back (relapse rate). I feel like if I quit I would want to go back
fairly quickly and have withdrawal symptoms. I hope that's not the case.

~~~
cosmez
i tried to leave facebook several times.. its too hard to do it if you have
any kind of social life, these are my reasons:

\- school announcements(surprise tests, parties, etc) used to be on facebook
when i was at school \- if i wanted someone to send me a photo, they just
uploaded the photo to facebook. \- my girlfriend (now wife) pushing me to use
it \- a job doing facebook apps

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donnyg107
I think many facebook users complain that facebook doesn't resemble a real
social network enough, and in many ways, I'm glad it doesn't. This author
doesn't like that he hears from a lot of people he doesn't talk to much, and
to me, that kind of means that yes, I have my friends I interact with often,
but I also have facebook to bring me closer to the people who may just not be
in that inner circle yet. I wouldn't have the time or energy to pursue those
relationships on my own and facebook makes it much easier. That may sound
unnatural, but if we were using computers to accomplish only what we would be
accomplishing without them, then why compute? Facebook is better at keeping up
with my acquaintances and friends than I am, and that's why I use it. That
doesn't make my real life social network any less important.

As for the privacy stuff, I don't know much about data mining, but I do know
that there seems to be an interesting relationship between total data and what
can be done on a person scale when it comes to privacy invasion by giant
companies. As the information collected becomes more intricate, more data is
required, i.e. every visited page with a like button on it ever, and the data
becomes increasingly difficult to mine. I don't like the idea of a single
person poking around my internet history, but then I remember that unless I
were a felon, I just don't see facebook having the resources for that to
happen (not that they absolutely couldn't, but that they couldn't target ME,
one in 500 million, without targeting a large group that I am a part of, say,
the state of new york, which would be a very difficult task. This is a
question of probabilistic capability, not absolute capability.). Maybe I'm
wrong, let me know if I am. This could be an important lesson in online
privacy for me.

~~~
reverend
Mining for information in data exceeding peta bytes are not really uncommon
anymore. There are even tools in public you can use for it, where Apache
Mahout is one that comes to mind.

------
hellotoast

      > Before, I used to only open Facebook in a single-site browser 
      > called Fluid, so it wouldn't be able to tie my browsing history 
      > to my account (I do the same for Google as well). As it turns 
      > out this isn't good enough; they log your IP address when you 
      > request a Like button and use it to build a profile of your 
      > activity.
    

I do this as well (isolate my Facebook browsing), but hadn't considered the
effects of leaking my IP address. Does anyone have data or anecdotes on how
effectively accounts can be linked to IP addresses?

~~~
kevinburke
This isn't the article I was looking for, but it presents the main problems:
[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-
privacy-tracking-data/51225112/1)

~~~
hellotoast
Thanks. This is what they say:

    
    
      > each time you visit a third-party webpage that has a Facebook 
      > Like button... the unique characteristics of your PC and browser, 
      > such as your IP address, screen resolution, operating system and
      > browser version, are also recorded.
    
      > Bejar acknowledged that Facebook could learn where specific 
      > members go on the Web when they are logged off by matching the 
      > unique PC and browser characteristics.... He emphasized that 
      > Facebook makes it a point not to do this. "We've said that we 
      > don't do it, and we couldn't do it without some form of consent 
      > and disclosure," Bejar says.

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ddw
I'm almost in the exact place, but my friends on FB use it for invitations and
I would totally be left out of events if I closed my account.

The problem is that FB just makes invitations so easy. I suppose it could be
done still over email, but I don't know what the solution is.

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biddyco
I'm not quitting Facebook completely, but one of my goals this year is to
spend way less time on it and more time on hacker news.

