We Built a Meta Pixel Inspector
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So Mozilla, which is one of the companies behind the effort to understand the Meta Pixel, is also sending data to Facebook? I was not a member of the Rally study.
What the f** is going on? Is Firefox itself tracking me too? Or maybe some extension? Which extension? How am i supposed to tell without hoping that the right person magically sees this comment or going 100% technical and running packet captures and Wireshark?
Why can't we just get access to the _RAW_ data being sent or stored about us?
As of now, VS Code will send encrypted data to Microsoft when you use it. So my machine, OS, applications all send data about me to companies, and I'm not even allowed to know what it is (not to single them out, VS Code is just one example I have inspected myself). I don't claim to understand SSL all that well, but i think they used certificate pinning and pre-master secrets that makes it impossible or very difficult for anyone outside MS to decrypt the data in any way...
This is all completely normal now. On mobile devices its even worse. Its not even possible to completely inspect the data a phone/tablet sends without rooting it and many are already impossible to bootloader unlock or root/jailbreak.
With certificate pinning, on an encrypted smartphone volume with a hardware key, that is only unlocked just in time by the OS (the way android works now), it is LITERALLY impossible to know what data is being transmitted or received over SSL on your own device. You are not allowed to know.
I can see it as well. I don't understand it either. I use facebook container on the desktop. Perhaps it is on Android or iPhone? I would also like to know what data Firefox shared with Facebook about me.
Not sure. I have used Facebook since then as well but the last sent date was end of March...
Edit: looks like https://privacybadger.org/ or https://ublockorigin.com/
Because most of it isn't interesting or relevant to you. Most data being sent isn't actually data about you, but data about the product.
>On mobile devices its even worse
This is because mobile devices are more secure and privacy preserving than the desktop platform. What you think is locking you out is actually just the platform locking everyone out so that they cripple the capabilities of malicious apps. Also keep in with that device users and app developers are both stakeholders. App developers want to keep their platforms secure which can conflict with the interests of the device users. The platform tries to balance the needs of everybody to try and make the best platform possible for all parties.
Thanks but that's for me to decide. And all of the privacy abuses in clear view by Meta and others over the past few years make that assertion sound ridiculous. In my view the owner of a device has a right to have complete visibility into said device's communications.
That said, the idea that we have self-described "rights" waters down the concept of actual "rights".
Things like Miranda rights, 2nd ammendment rights and so on are codified trade-offs between public good and personal good. Often these rights are local, and differ from country to country. Some travel, some don't. Most people in the UK presume they have free-speech rights (they don't) but pretty-much no-one in the UK believes they "have the right to bear arms."
I don't negate your point. I too have a desire not to leak data to corporations from my devices. Equally I choose which browser I use, which sites I visit, which OS I run, and so on.
I guess I'm saying that I understand that companies don't exist for my benefit, but for theirs, and I balance their desires with my desires when making my choices.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facebook-pixel-hel...
But this doesn't cover server-side data transfer. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/marketing-api/conversio...
That's not really the same thing as a tool that tells a single person that the site they're on uses meta pixel as it happens.
And you're ok with this?
Their actions tell us they’re OK with it.
That'll be something for when the market has fundamentally changed and you'll make your nation's average for your education level. But until then essentially nobody has to work anywhere "under protest", there are so many other opportunities.
Choice A) stand on principle and ruffle feathers and risk becoming unemployed
Choice B) just do what tasks you've been assigned, collect paycheck, hold your nose until better options are available.
It is totally understandable why people can find themselves in these situations. It is totally different than the team member that thinks up this stuff and actively promotes this within the org. Those are the asshats
There's more than enough work out there, but those other jobs might not net an individual 10x the average household income. Can one survive on 5x or even 3x? Then there are more than enough alternatives.
If the employer has kidnapped your daughter and threatens to kill her if you don't build this tracking solution, then I can totally see how you'd do things you find reprehensible "under protest". But I doubt that's a common scenario, and generally people just don't care or they rationalize it ("I'm working on ads so the internet will not be paywalled").
You can judge someone that accepted a job at bigAdTech, but there are other jobs that start out as an acceptable place but as things continue on with potentially new leadership or some other change causes things to become untenable. Not everything is simple, but you can armchair quarterback and make judgement one the limit information you have.
Regardless of what you say, it’s actions that matter. You can tell me you’re against something all you want — but if your actions tell me you aren’t, guess which I care about?
It’s easy to talk ourselves into doing something “under protest” that we’re “against” for a big paycheck. But you know what, at some point, we’re not really “against” it afterall.
The businesses are legally accountable for the data they're sending and complying with privacy laws, but to most platforms it's a dumb pipe for whatever data the business chooses to send.
I think the post you're replying to is concerned about the moral rights of the people whose data is sent, not whether sending the data is beneficial or harmful to the business that sends it.
Even if we fight and succeed in stopping a tracking mechanism (third-party cookies) we discover that another one is developed (fingerprinting). It's times when you think you have privacy/no one is watching that you're most susceptible to doing something you might regret.
If you consciously acknowledge that your digital life is public, you can consider performing activities using other mediums. Calling instead of messaging. Shopping at stores with cash. Journaling in a paper notebook.
[disclaimer: I worked at Facebook at the time. I was still appalled.]
tl;dr for the website: meta pixels are everywhere on the web and gathering your interactions and inputs on all kinds of sites--including ones related to your guilty pleasures, your taxes, your health, school, etc.
By keeping the purpose vague, it makes it seem nefarious.
If you let Facebook do this for free, you should at least take the $5 from me.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...
Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33705532 - Nov 2022 (74 comments)
Tax-filing websites have been sending users financial info to Meta - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33753058 - Nov 2022 (18 comments)
Or to put it another way, even if you send the signal that you don’t want to be tracked, they will ignore it and track you anyway. They are intentionally doing something unethical and are aware they are doing it.