Last week a common refrain from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg while testifying in front of congress was “I’ll get back to you” or “I don’t know.” That led to this document being posted by Facebook with the things that Zuckerberg could not answer during his testimony. Now I will let you go through it for yourself to see the sort of stuff they’re up to. But the one that will get your attention is this one:
When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account. This is because other apps and sites don’t know who is using Facebook.
That’s right, Facebook tracks non-users. That’s a wee bit creepy. It goes on to explain how it does that (sort of), and that others do that as well (True. But depending on the site it could be less or just as invasive). Keep in mind that Facebook has denied this in the past, then copped to it when they were forced to stop tracking Belgians earlier this year.
While I give points to Facebook for putting this document out publicly (as they could have just sent it to congress and left the rest of us out of the loop), it really doesn’t make me feel better about Facebook. It’s clear that they were off doing things that at best were questionable for some time, and that reinforces that people shouldn’t be using Facebook. Though, it’s also clear that even if you’re like me and you didn’t have a Facebook account, you were being tracked anyway.
Hopefully congress is paying attention.