Facebook Collecting Personal Data

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CoalHeat
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Post by CoalHeat » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 10:02 am


 
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SWPaDon
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Post by SWPaDon » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 10:59 am

I realized last week how far they were into me. I was logged into Facebook, and it picked up the pages I visited and added them to my feed.
Now if I'm on Facebook, that is the only thing open on my computer.

 
coalfan
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Post by coalfan » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 12:46 pm

F all that never mesed with that bull *censored* it all bad dam crookjs and thieves out there !!! *censored*

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 1:06 pm



 
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warminmn
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Post by warminmn » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 3:51 pm

coalfan wrote:F all that never mesed with that bull *censored* it all bad dam crookjs and thieves out there !!! *censored*
That pretty much sums up my thoughts on facebook! I was happy to hear he lost some dollars in that spaceship accident/explosion.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 9:01 pm

SWPaDon wrote:I realized last week how far they were into me. I was logged into Facebook, and it picked up the pages I visited and added them to my feed.
Now if I'm on Facebook, that is the only thing open on my computer.
That has nothing to do with being logged into Facebook and is not very difficult to do. When you visit the first page they are either going to have something from Facebook included such as the "like" button. As soon as you load that page Facebook knows you were there and can determine it was you specifically by accessing their cookie.

As another example the Google ads on here may reflect sites you have visited or products you have viewed. That's because Google has a cookie on your machine, when you visit site A they simply read the cookie to see who it is. When you come here they read the cookie again and serve you an ad based the product you viewed.

Just an FYI while I know what ads are being served to everyone I have no way of knowing what ads are being served to any individual.

 
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SWPaDon
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Post by SWPaDon » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 9:58 pm

Richard S. wrote:
SWPaDon wrote:I realized last week how far they were into me. I was logged into Facebook, and it picked up the pages I visited and added them to my feed.
Now if I'm on Facebook, that is the only thing open on my computer.
That has nothing to do with being logged into Facebook and is not very difficult to do. When you visit the first page they are either going to have something from Facebook included such as the "like" button. As soon as you load that page Facebook knows you were there and can determine it was you specifically by accessing their cookie.

As another example the Google ads on here may reflect sites you have visited or products you have viewed. That's because Google has a cookie on your machine, when you visit site A they simply read the cookie to see who it is. When you come here they read the cookie again and serve you an ad based the product you viewed.

Just an FYI while I know what ads are being served to everyone I have no way of knowing what ads are being served to any individual.
I didn't use the like button. A friend of mine wanted me to look up the worth of a magazine he has from woodstock. It showed up on my facebook feed. I didn't look it up through Facebook, I had a seperate window open......several windows actually.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Fri. Sep. 02, 2016 11:19 pm

SWPaDon wrote:I didn't use the like button.
You don't need to click the button. It doesn't even need to necessarily have to be anything present on the page. When you load that other page if there is anything linked to Facebook whether it's the image for the like button or script your browser is going to make a request to Facebook's servers for that content. That request includes referral information about the page it was requested from. Facebook's servers will respond with the content and access their cookie to identify you. They know exactly what page you looked at and who you are.

If you go back to the Woodstock page, right click the page and select "view page source" or something similar depending on your browser. If you search that text for facebook you will find a reference for it.


 
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SWPaDon
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Post by SWPaDon » Sat. Sep. 03, 2016 6:25 am

Good info, thanks.

 
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BunkerdCaddis
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Post by BunkerdCaddis » Sat. Sep. 03, 2016 8:26 am

You will have to forgive me here but I know enough about this to be ignorant. How well do the ad blockers and no script add ons work? My main web surfer (this computer) is an old Pentium 4 (circa 2003) running puppy linux and firefox with adblock+ , no script and ghostery. The only ads I see on here are the coal ads (Hitzer, Lehigh). My tablet on the other hand (Android) gets it all. Back when I used FB I rarely saw any ads on there either and mostly very generic. But how much info still goes back up the line? Is there a way to actually see the data as it's being uploaded? The part behind the browser to the interwebs is where my brain derails...

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Sat. Sep. 03, 2016 10:18 am

BunkerdCaddis wrote:You will have to forgive me here but I know enough about this to be ignorant. How well do the ad blockers and no script add ons work?
They rely on commonality and since the Google ads are from Google servers they are easy to block. The Hitzer, LL and Lehigh ads are served from my server so they have no reference for them being ads, also there is no javascript used. If Google was to implement a local service they become harder to block. The problem there is Google needs to know how many ads are served and how many times they were clicked and implementation on my server takes that out of their hands.

There is also ways to block the users of adblockers and as the use of the adblockers accelerates that is going to become common. The only other alternative to ads is paid subscription service.
Is there a way to actually see the data as it's being uploaded? The part behind the browser to the interwebs is where my brain derails...
Depending on your browser there is different ways to access the developer tools. For Firefox the easiest way to access them is right click the page anywhere and select "inspect element". That is going to open a pane on the bottom. Click the "Network" tab and refresh the page.

 
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BunkerdCaddis
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Post by BunkerdCaddis » Sat. Sep. 03, 2016 11:05 am

Richard S. wrote: The only other alternative to ads is paid subscription service.


Yes I realize that for sure and have no problem w/ ads per se and I will compliment you on how the ads are displayed here in a non-intrusive way and they are "to the point". But I don't stay very long on any website that has intrusive, pop up and annoying ads that track me, and even on the radio if it's an annoying ad, I generally won't patronize the retailer. The ads here though I have clicked on.

 
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Richard S.
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Post by Richard S. » Sat. Sep. 03, 2016 11:38 am

BunkerdCaddis wrote: pop up and annoying ads that track me,
The only pop up here is the notification for a new PM and that can be deactivated in the control panel. Why you would want to I have no idea. :)

The Google ads will definitely be "tracking" you but it's unavoidable since it's the only viable platform for ad serving. If you have a Google account you can set what type of ads you want to see. Same thing when you see that "Adchoice" button. You will see ads served on here based on pages you have visited that are using Google services like Adsense, Analytics etc. I could turn that off if I wanted but it won't change how much data Google collects about you.

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