
Wherein I ridicule Facebook some more, then collaborate with the Panopticon - protomyth
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2015/04/21.html
======
krupan
Man, I try not to think about these things (how much I'm getting tracked, or
worse, how much my kids are getting tracked), but it's good to be reminded of
the sad truth every now and then. Thanks, jwz.

------
pen2l
> So I guess what I'm saying here is: Run an ad blocker.

On a related note, run 'Facebook Disconnect':
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-
disconnec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-
disconnect/ejpepffjfmamnambagiibghpglaidiec?utm_source=chrome-app-launcher-
info-dialog)

Adblock doesn't stop you from Facebook tracking you with their 'like' buttons,
this 'Facebook Disconnect' extension will.

------
pronoiac
Ugh. The site's down, here's the Google cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ju2jJJ_...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ju2jJJ_Rf8cJ:www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2015/04/21.html&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1)

I emailed jwz, and he blames a reader here for a DDOS, specifically a
synflood. Please knock that off.

------
trjordan
I don't really get the pointed outrage. But this isn't hugely different than
anything anybody else does.

\- Individual products like AdRoll and Perfect Audience let you track users
and show them ads. Ever been to a site and had their ads pop up everywhere
afterwards? Ever looked at a product then gotten ads for _just that product_?
Yeah, that.

\- Google lets you track conversions based on a ton of information. What
Google ads users viewed, sure, but also referring site, region, demographic
info. Hell, it'll tell you which pages you visited before buying. Everything
but the search term you used ... unless the referrer was AdWords.

\- Emails all send you unique links, which allow you to do conversion
tracking. Hell, you can even embed retargeting pixels in emails, so when you
open a company's email, they can serve you ads based on that knowledge.

Every possible way that tech can track you, companies are tracking and
advertising with. I get that it's kind of scary, but it's not just Facebook,
and a lot of it is the digital equivalent of reading body language on people
in your store.

So, yeah, run an ad blocker. But not just for Facebook.

~~~
ethanbond
He specifically brought up Google Analytics. Did you just skim?

The particularly pointed anti-FB sentiment stems from their selective policy
enforcement, the privacy issues weren't specifically targeted.

~~~
abakker
Maybe this is a bit off topic, but I think trjordan's point was really that
the tracking/retargeting industry is productized though. Google, Facebook and
others ultimately serve as platforms for ads as well as providing tracking
software. Meanwhile, companies like Marketo provide pretty advanced
tracking/attribution data to the companies that use them. They specifically
enable tying device IDs harvested through mobile apps that use their tracking
SDKs to be linked with other browsing and email behavior to build extensively
customized ad campaigns targeted at specific behavior patterns.

------
aeturnum
>"Well, because that guy pointed out a bug without also blowing sunshine up my
ass, I'm going to just leave our product buggy."

Has this guy worked anywhere before? (Yes, it's a joke, I know who Zawinski
is). I am sure there is a faction in Facebook who thinks their filter system
needs an overhaul, and I'm sure this post will go on a big pile of "why"
somewhere. However, if you're asking an engineer who works near (but probably
not on) something to go talk to another team, you need to be somewhat polite.
Because you're not asking them to do their job - you're asking them to go tell
a colleague that they aren't doing theirs. You want them to spend political
capital internally to make Facebook/whatever better for you instead of
spending it on what they think would be best.

I don't think he's a hypocrite for using and hating Facebook. That's just
life. I think he's forgotten that people, even Facebook employees, have ideas
and agendas other than his own and you need to be diplomatic if you want them
to serve yours.

~~~
abstractbill
A long time ago, jwz used to use Justin.tv for the DNA Lounge webcast, and I
used to use his rants as evidence that someone out there cared about a given
bug and we should prioritize fixing it.

If anything I think it _helped_ that his rants were rude, since that made it
clear how much he cared about the problems.

Startups are different though. What you wrote is probably a lot more true of a
company the size of Facebook.

------
pgeorgi
For the Like button issue, there's Shariff, which provides a privacy friendly
social button bar:
[https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff](https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff)

It only tracks when you actually use the button.

(also mentioned in the comments of the original article, but IMHO worth
spreading)

~~~
techpeace
There's also [https://github.com/tfrce/social-buttons-
server](https://github.com/tfrce/social-buttons-server) , from
[https://taskforce.is/](https://taskforce.is/)

------
benevol
If you feel trapped inside Facebook b/c your friends keep you there, you can
start a Campaign for your favorite new/open social network on
[https://www.iWouldDo.it/](https://www.iWouldDo.it/) and start having your
friends migrate.

This new tool specifically offers a way to beat the "prison effect" of
products that are subject to the network effect.

~~~
soylentcola
I still think it's futile for most people. Like a lot of other people, I
begrudgingly use Facebook because it's an easy way to engage in "low priority"
communication with lots of friends and family. Mass emails or texting is too
demanding whereas the Facebook style of communication you can take or leave
when you feel like logging in to read random posts.

The issue you touched on won't be easy to fight. I think that as long as these
social platforms don't need to use any common protocol (like email), the
natural state is to have a single major player with smaller ones maintaining
pressure to improve and add new features.

I'm apparently one of the only people who likes Google+ for this sort of thing
but no matter how hard I decided to bug and annoy people, there's no way I'd
convince enough of them to migrate all of that stuff over there. Same goes for
any other competitor. And unless you want to maintain redundant profiles for
more effort (and more of the unavoidable marketing stuff) you can't just
strike out on your own without defeating the purpose.

The fact that Facebook was the first to get your mom and your professor and
your boss and your mailman to sign up means that they've got an incredible
advantage. There's just no way to get that many people to opt into something
else, especially as resistant to change as many are.

And unlike email, I can't just switch to G+ and keep bullshitting with my
friends on Facebook like I switched to Gmail and kept emailing friends at
Yahoo or Hotmail. Imagine if in order to change email providers, you had to
convince everyone else to switch as well. We'd still be using our AOL
addresses from 1993.

~~~
benevol
> There's just no way to get that many people to opt into something else

Not in one day. It's always a process. And with a system like iWouldDo.it, you
"switch hypothetically" (using a pledge with a condition) and when your
condition is met (i.e. "Alice, Bob and Chris are ready to switch, too"), you
switch for real. Which results in other peoples' conditions being met, which
makes them switch as well, etc. etc.

------
snowwrestler
Instead of embedding Facebook's "Like" button, I prefer to use the fb share
URL to create my own "share" button that does not have fb tracking code. If I
want to show a share count next to the button, I can make a call to
graph.facebook.com with the URL and then show that number.

I can't think of a reason to put a fb Like button on a web page anymore.

------
jballs
So we are tracked by facebook if we are logged in and see the like button on a
different page. Does this mean that other sites are doing the same, if we see
a button for their sites, like twitter or p interest? Or is facebook the main
perpetrator here?

~~~
epistasis
I don't know about Twitter or Pinterest's tracking, but I do know that most ad
networks will also track you as much as they can between all the sites.

There are several products that help deal with this, but they don't get nearly
enough attention. The one I'm familiar with is PrivacyFix [1], but there are
several others that should also be investigated if this matters to you.

[1]
[https://www.privacyfix.com/start/install](https://www.privacyfix.com/start/install)

------
guelo
Specifically, you want to use the EasyPrivacy filter subscription with your ad
blocker.

------
ffn
I don't like facebook either, but can't we just not use something without
making a huge sensational scene about it?

Also, for those whose eyes hurt from the matrix color theme the site uses, you
can change the colors by opening up console and running:

document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].setAttribute("style", "color: #333;
background-color: #ddd");

~~~
mikeash
Normally I'm in favor of the "don't use it, then" approach. But it doesn't
work with Facebook, because you're on it whether you want to be or not. Even
if you've studiously avoided using it, you most likely have friends who use it
and have given Facebook enough knowledge to identify and track you.

~~~
JanezStupar
True story. I created FB account in 2012 - when I needed to log in so I could
access their API documentation.

And what did I find? There was a 90% complete profile waiting for me. All my
friends were already lined up, my personal data was already there, my photos
were already there.

And thus I learned to love the Big Brother.

~~~
twobits
You should have learned to fear and try to fight him.

~~~
JanezStupar
As a EU infidel, chances of me getting NSA to delete and stop collecting my
dick pics is about nil for foreseeable future.

Thus I will proceed with activities more fruitful than trying to fight the
windmills.

