Codebreaker

Facebook caves

John Moe Sep 28, 2011

A couple days ago, we reported on how, under Facebook’s new arrangement, the company will track your activities online EVEN IF you’ve logged out. Obviously a lot of people were vexed by the idea of Facebook becoming a web surfing black hole from which no light can escape. Now Facebook says it has fixed that bug (come on, Big Face, was it a bug? Really? Not a feature?) and changed the logout process so that if you logout, they leave you alone.

Nik Cubrolovic, the Australian blogger who first broke the news about the post-logout tracking, says:

Facebook has changed as much as they can change with the logout issue. They want to retain the ability to track browsers after logout for safety and spam purposes, and they want to be able to log page requests for performance reasons etc. I would still recommend that users clear cookies or use a separate browser, though. I believe Facebook when they describe what these cookies are used for, but that is not a reason to be complacent on privacy issues and to take initiative in remaining safe.

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