It's not obvious to me. How were you harmed by facebook logging this data?
The reason it pisses me off is that my browser history reveals things about me that I'd rather keep private. Facebook is taking that from me without my consent. I would feel approximately the same if I discovered they were stealing stuff out of my garage without my consent-- it wasn't part of the deal I thought I agreed to.
Without getting into the details of my particular situation, I'll just say that I have political and religious views that I think are unpopular, and I don't trust the rest of the world to treat me fairly were those views made public. Also, even my views weren't unpopular now, I want to be judged for what I do, not what I read about on the web.
(I should also add that I don't think any of the private stuff that I mentioned is creepy; it's just my private business. For example, I might feel the same way if I were gay and lived in Mauritania (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Mauritania).)
Seem reasonable?
As to who is doing the deception, I think you're right that (in the example we're discussing) cnn.com is being deceptive. That's a good point; I hadn't really considered the complicity of the partner sites.
But in the end, Facebook is producing widgets, building a system to receive data from those widgets, and working with their partners to deploy those widgets. This system of data transmission is in no way obvious to normal people; if I weren't a web developer, I'd just think I was seeing a "like button image," and that's it. That's the part that pisses me off-- I think it's sneaky, not just me complaining about something I originally agreed to.
Just out of curiosity, and assuming you actually have a Facebook account, this really doesn't bother you at all? Should it be obvious to me that buttons I'm not clicking may be transmitting data to other sites?
The good news for me is that I'll probably be dead by then, or at least most of my friends will be, so Facebook will be of no interest to me.
I'm curious about why you describe your belief as idealistic. Specifically, what is ideal, or even good, about Facebook logging a subset of my browsing history? I understand it's potentially profitable for them and their partners, but that's not a benefit to me.
My idealistic view, which is substantially in conflict with yours, I think, would be that Facebook just serve me targeted ads and forget about the rest of it. Why would your ideal future be better? (I'm assuming you don't work for Facebook or one of their partners.)
I never want to meet you, if you see nothing wrong with snooping around my life and sharing all my secrets with everyone.
It's harmful because it's abusive.
Next year they will want more revenue, so how deeper will they go for that, will they break my windows open and storm the house?
I know it's an exageration, but it ilustrates my point.
In your example, those people breaking into your home is wrong. Watching you when you are in public or on their property would not be.
It does happen without the knowledge of many people today, and the surprise when they find out what's really going on has led to a lot of backlash, but the solution to that is to educate people better about technology and what it can do, not to limit technology so that it can only do things the average person can conceive of.