Facebook Spying – Just Say No

So Facebook is spying on basically everything its members do on every other large internet website and sending the data back to Facebook. By default these actions (buy, sell, etc) get reported on your public Facebook profile. You can opt out of having them displayed but, and here’s the really nasty thing, even when you’ve logged out of Facebook itself, the Facebook spyware agreements with its partner websites still collects the data and stores it on the Facebook servers… presumably associated with your profile for future data mining and spamming and/or blackmail. This is almost exactly what Microsoft tried a few years back with Passport and Smart Tags before it was beaten back like a rabid dog. Is Zuckerberg actively attempting to become the most hated person on the internet? Maybe. This blog explains how you can block Facebook’s spying while maintaining an account there:

Using BlockSite

1. Download and install the Firefox extension BlockSite.
2. Restart Firefox.
3. Select the menu option Tool > Add-ons.
4. Click the Blocksite extension’s Options button.
5. Copy or type this into the field: http://*facebook.com/beacon/*
6. Click the OK button.
7. Click the OK button.
   

Alternatively, if you are a bit more technical, you can edit Adblock Plus to accomplish the same thing by adding http://*facebook.com/beacon* to the Adblock Plus filterset, but if you have disabled it at any of the websites pimping for Facebook then that site will still send your activity data to Facebook.

Facebook is using a Javascript-inserted zero-dimension iframe to do a run-around most browsers’ protections against cross-site scripting and similar data spying techniques.