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Keep Facebook out of your browsing

Robert Hallock January 26, 2009 1:25 PM ET in Tech

tinfoilFacebook has popularized a technology called Facebook Beacon which allows a growing array of partner sites to report your usage statistics back to Facebook. This usage information is then used to refine the advertising profile created expressly for your account.  Call us loonies, but this privacy business squicks us out.

To combat Facebook Beacon, an author has written an experimental Firefox addon that will block the exchange of beacon data. If you’re not keen on registering to give it a go, we’ve heard that BugMeNot will bust the login block.

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7 Comments:

  1. Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy
    Guest
    26 Jan '09, 4:17 pm

    Does Facebook offer a way to "opt out" of this?

  2. RyderOCZ
    OCZ Guru / IC Groupie
    26 Jan '09, 4:23 pm

    Not that I have seen.

  3. Robert Hallock
    Cad
    26 Jan '09, 4:45 pm

    No they do not.

  4. NiGHTS
    Givin'em the business...
    26 Jan '09, 6:58 pm

    Forgive me if I'm wrong because this might be something different, but didn't Facebook have this whole Beacon fiasco a year ago? It resulted on a user's ability to opt out of using Beacon, as well as a public apology from Zuckerburg himself.

    http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...on_apology.php

    Or was that just surrounding the news feed on facebook posting where you'd been recently/what you'd bought.

  5. MachineDog
    Icrontic Technician
    26 Jan '09, 7:02 pm

    Who is that in the picture? XD

  6. CyrixInstead
    http://www.cyrixinstead.com
    27 Jan '09, 9:08 am

    If you go to Settings, Privacy, Applications, you can choose "Don't allow Beacon websites to post stories to my profile".

  7. Miltownstaydown
    Her Fingers, Like Spiders
    27 Jan '09, 9:33 am

    Good thing I don't have a facebook.....

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