Technology & Innovation — October 4, 2011

New Furore over Facebook Cookies

Is Facebook again using a cookies that tracks users across different web properties and back to the Facebook site. Entrepreneur and hacker Nick Cubrilovic says yes and asks why.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook like buttons and other website widgets were setting cookies on visiting browsers that could then be read later and used to track the user across different web properties and back to the Facebook site. As a result of that report, the cookie in question—datr—was removed. Now it is back, writes Nick Cubrilovic.

What’s the Big Idea?

Cubrilovic says Facebook keeps the data collected for up to 90 days and then deletes it. “I believe them when they say this and that they are not hiding anything, but I also believe that our definitions of tracking differ. …At a minimum they are tracking by reading the cookies, and if you look further into some of the patents that Facebook has filed, as well as their business model (advertising), it is not a big leap to make to conclude that Facebook are tracking users and analyzing that data.”

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