Are you getting the feeling lately that you are being watched these days? Recently there were reports that said General Motors’ OnStar service was tracking motorists and now we have a new report that says Facebook has been tracking its users as they visit other websites around the internet.
A security researcher (gotta love those folks!) discovered that Facebook had been depositing “cookies” on the computers of its users that could allow the social media giant to find out what other sites they are visiting.
Cookies are usually harmless little bits of computer code that are placed on the hard drives of users visiting web sites. They are usually very tiny and take up very little space on a computer’s hard drive.
Normally, cookies store information that relates only to the site that deposited it. For example, a cookie can be used to keep you “logged in” to a particular website for an extended period of time so that you do not have to type in your username and password each and every time you visit the site. In this way, cookies can be quite convenient for users.
There are numerous other harmless purposes for which cookies are used, but they can also be used for more sinister purposes as well. It all depends who’s writing the code the deposits the cookie.
Tracking users as they visit other websites on the internet can be enormously profitable for web site operators. Although we’re all accustomed to seeing advertising on the internet, most of us assume that the advertising is not delivered to us based on our interests. Obviously, visiting a site about cats is probably going to result in a surfer seeing a lot of advertising that relates to cats. That’s kind of like erecting a billboard advertising luxury cars in an upscale neighborhood.
On the other hand, if the operator of a website knows what your interests are, they can target you with advertising that is more likely to be interesting to you no matter what the site happens to be about.
For example, if a website operator knows you have visited a lot of sites relating to the television program American Idol, they can display ads that might advertise apparel, tickets or other products that relate to that program. When an advertiser knows what your interests are, they have a much better chance of selling you something. Why do you think they advertise shaving products and fast cars during “action” programs on television and beauty products during a Lifetime movie?
This is what makes the kind of data Facebook is accused of collecting so potentially valuable. Facebook is huge. The latest figures I have heard state they have 750 million users.
This certainly provides a powerful incentive for a company with that many users to collect data about the things their users are interested in. I guess it’s up to each individual user to decide whether they believe Facebook’s claim that the tracking data was being collected due to an error or whether something a little more sketchy was going on.
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