Facebook is watching and those who are disconnected

That's it Facebook also monitors users who are logged out of the service

Facebook tracks the behavior of users they don't even have account on Facebook, users who have logged out of the service, even users who have officially requested not to be tracked, a Belgian report reveals.

Facebook, for its part, rejects complaints and talks about "inaccuracies."

The report, he says the Guardian, edited by researchers του Πανεπιστημίου της Λουβέν και του Ελεύθερου Πανεπιστημίου των Βρυξελλών. Σύμφωνα με εκface of Facebook, the report was commissioned by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, which is now investigating the company's practices.

The case concerns Facebook's "social plug-ins", such as the famous button Like, which are used on 13 million websites worldwide.

Facebook installs cookies on the computers of users who visit any page on Facebook.com, even pages that do not require a login (log-in).

When the user επισκεφθεί ιστοσελίδες που περιέχουν κοινωνικά plug-in του Facebοok, τα cookies μεταδίδουν πληροφορίες στην εταιρεία, ακόμα και αν ο χρήστης δεν χρησιμοποιήσει το κουμπί Like, το Facebοok Login or other plug-ins.

Cookies are small files that store user settings, information about their previous activities and other data required for mode of the website that issues them. Facebook uses cookies to track user behavior for advertising purposes.

European legislation on protection of personal data provides that websites can install cookies only with the user's consent, unless the cookies are necessary either for connecting to the service (criterion A), or for offering services requested by the user himself (criterion B).

Οι πρακτικές του Facebook φέρονται να είναι παράνομες επειδή τα κοινωνικά plug-in της υπηρεσίας παρακολουθούν τους users χωρίς τη συγκατάθεσή τους. Δεδομένου ότι αυτά τα plug-in απευθύνονται εξ ορισμού στους χρήστες του Facebook, χωρίς να είναι απαραίτητα για τη σύνδεση της υπηρεσίας, φέρονται να μην πληρούν ούτε το κριτήριο Α ούτε το κριτήριο Β.

The company offers users the ability to opt out of monitoring (opt-out), referring them to the relevant service of the European Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA). However, even in this case, it allegedly installs cookies that allow the identification and tracking of these users.

"European legislation is clear at this point," says Brendan van Alsen of the University of Louvre, a member of the editorial team of the exhibition. "To be legally valid, user consent to online behavioral advertising must be voluntary [opt-in]," he explains.

“Facebook cannot rely on user inaction [ie not requesting an opt-out] to infer that consent was given. As far as non-users are concerned, Facebook has absolutely no legal standing base to justify its current practices," points out Van Alsenoy.

This would mean that the terms of use of Facebook, which explicitly state that the company uses cookies on users who do not have an account on the service, or are logged out of it, are in fact illegal.

A company spokesman, however, stated that "this report contains inaccuracies. The editors have never been in touch with us, or they have tried to confirm the assumptions on which the report was based. "

Source: tovima.gr