Facebook Graph Search: Marketing Opportunities and a Potential Privacy Nightmare | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Graph Search: Marketing Opportunities and a Potential Privacy Nightmare

stateofsearch.com

49 pointsfryed761 comments

I don't want to sound mean, but if people aren't smart enough to keep their lives out of Facebook, then let them get burned.

It's not rocket science. I've had a Facebook account for years and there is nothing - absolutely NOTHING -on my Facebook account that I would worry about an employer seeing. That means no political views, no off-color humor, NOTHING that I would not say or post in public, in broad daylight. I will never understand why some people can't get this through their heads.

Keep in mind that FB can, and does, track your browser usage whether you are logged in or not. So even though some info may not currently be in the graph, they certainly have a pretty good dossier covering everything you do on the internet.

It's not only what you put on your FB that counts, it's anything you have done on the internet from a browser.

Interesting that you believe FB can magically track 100% of your browsing history even if you are not logged into facebook and not on a site with FB integration. However, this is something google does for sure. Thanks to chrome and search integrations in other browsers.

It is actually possible and Facebook does do it. Everywhere you see a facebook like button, javascript is loaded from Facebook. Facebook logs certain browser characteristics[1] with the request and uses this to identify you. Then when you log in it can match your account(s) to your browser identity. There's more complex data mining going on at Facebook but it is happening.

[1] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/tracking-by-user-agent

The article is about what OTHER people can find out you, not FaceBook. But I am also aware of browser tracking as well, which is why I'm still not worried at all - I pay the same amount of attention as if I was walking down a crowded Manhattan street.

I didn't realize they could track you even when logged out. I only ever log into FB with Chromium Incognito mode, but apparently that's not enough.

I believe -and people can correct me if I'm wrong- the way they do it is through all the sites with integrated Facebook items: "Share this", "Comment" etc. The cookies they use to track you are sitting on your drive regardless of your facebook status (logged in/out) and can simply be retrieved the next time you log in or link accounts.

So they can track your visits to any site with a FB Like or Share button on it, but only when you next login to FB?

If you log in with incognito mode, the cookies created in that session will be deleted at the end of that session (when you close your last incognito window) and will not be available to non-incognito browser windows.

Right, that's what I thought was the reason FB can't track you outside of Incognito mode, but if they can track you even when you're logged out of FB then it sounds like it's irrelevant whether you're using Incognito or not.

If I remember correctly, the way they track you is that they retain certain cookies that identify you even after you log off. But if you delete all the cookies you have from FB once and then delete any new cookies you get from them after each session (via incognito mode), wouldn't that fix the problem?

I suppose that they could also track you by IP address, but that would be pretty unreliable since most home users have dynamic IPs.

If you really want to avoid tracking, you can use a browser extension like NoScript (or the similar NotScripts for Chrome) to prevent the JavaScript code that puts their buttons on third-party web sites from loading.

Is there a reliable way to stop this browser tracking, apart from quitting Facebook?

Blocking the "Like" button should hopefully do the trick. In Firefox you can use Ghostery or RequestPolicy (stops cross-site requests unless you specifically allow them) for that.

I think it's not entirely clear that quitting Facebook will stop them from tracking you.

I might be wrong, but you could use a dedicate browser for facebook and nothing else.

On a Mac you could use fluid with a separate cookie store for this.

Facebook uses that information to target ads. If you're going to claim that Facebook makes that data available to prospective employers, prove it.

Guy...

What are you talking about?

I never made that claim.

Are you arguing with someone else? That claim was never made.

that claim was not made.

People tend to learn things the hard way. I feel that if I were to be myself on facebook, it would disservice me down the road immensely. Because I cannot be myself on facebook, any goal I may have has to be cast through an obfuscation process to strip out anything that may cause problems gaining foreign work visas, jobs anywhere, any political process that I may want to engage in to bring positive change, etc etc etc etc etc... Because I cannot be myself on facebook, it is a logical conclusion (for me) that I should not have a facebook account. So I don't. I call friends on the phone and use email, and the smaller set of more intimate friendships that I maintain are deeply satisfying and efficient.

> That means no political views, no off-color humor, NOTHING that I would not say or post in public

Yikes! I totally get not posting things on public websites that you wouldn't post in public. But you really shouldn't be afraid to make your political views public, and even off-color humor has its place. I don't share the same political views as my employer, but we have mutual respect for each other.

I guess if you're a holocaust denier or a birther or a 9/11 truther or something you may not want to make too much noise about it. But even if your views are somewhat fringe, you shouldn't be ashamed of what you believe.

Depends on your situation.

While we all want to think its nice we have political freedom and can make jokes among friends, if the information leaked to the wrong person (anal boss out to get you?) it isn't anymore about where the information comes from, its about protecting your rights and (possibly) source of income. If everyone played by the rules and kept their nose out of everyone else's business this wouldn't be a problem but I'm sure you know just as well as I do that there are always people out there looking for ways to bend the rules.

Yes, it does depend on the situation. If you depend on your job and you think your boss is looking for an excuse to fire you, I wouldn't blame you for keeping your head down. But that should be a somewhat exceptional circumstance. For typical work situations, that shouldn't be the default mode. Society is what we make of it and we should push back against repression. Naturally, this means tolerating views we disagree with.

No matter what you believe in, someone will disagree with you. Many employers have people in positions of power who can, and will, try to hurt you, legally and/or financially, if they don't like how you believe.

Is it right? No. Does it happen? Oh, heck yeah.

That means no political views, no off-color humor, NOTHING that I would not say or post in public, in broad daylight.

I also have no fear of an employer "finding" my Facebook profile (actually, my boss at my current job is Facebook friends with me, as is his wife, the co-owner of the company)... but I have a different take on it than you do. I absolutely post political opinions, off-color humour and all manner of controversial items to my FB wall. I just don't care who sees any of that stuff, since A. I doubt most potential future employers are going to care about any of it and B. IF by some amazing chance they did, then - by definition - I don't want to work for them.

So, if $BIGCORP is bothered by the fact that I'm a pro-gun, Libertarian atheist with a "thing" for tall redheads that look like Karen Gillan, then f%^# $BIGCORP, as far as I'm concerned. There are enough other employers out there, I'm not going to waste my time trying to appease every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along.

> I will never understand why some people can't get this through their heads.

I enjoy working at a place where I don't have to worry about these things because I work with real human beings.

Alternatively, I'd never want to work for someone who judged me entirely on some off color humor or silly photos on Facebook.

Many people need to work for someone they don't want to work for.

Why do you think it's really anything to with being intelligent or not?

When you're using Facebook it feels like a social situation, so you behave as you would with your friends.

The internet's weird because parts of it feel part of your private life, parts your professional.

If you act as a normal human being with a normal social brain and a normal understanding of computers, which, not being mean, you are probably not because you're using HN, it's very easy to get caught like this.

so why are you not posting with your real name on here then?

For exactly the same reason. That should be obvious.

Set everything to private, don't let your profile show up publicly and don't add anyone from work - problem solved?

Well ... if they are male chances of liking porn and guns are so high that you shouldn't bother searching.

And in the last 10 years the notion that everybody is a freak in his numerous personal ways began to take hold anmog the populace. But the institutions became more easily offended and prude.

But I suppose with the inevitable dieout of the current gen of employers the next just won't bother with searching ... it will be like - why bother - I will find crap for everyone.

There are lots of guys who don't like guns. I've only lived in a few liberal US cities so maybe my perception is skewed, but I (as a Canadian) thought the gun-loving american stereotype largely represented a minority.

Disclaimer - I am a foreigner not living in US so I use the most reliable sources to educate myself about US culture - Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert.

By liking I was referring in the way most guys also like powerful cars or F1. Or battleships, planes, carriers, ICBM and the Death Star. They are outstanding pieces of engineering combining some of the best thoughts of some of the smartest people on the planet.

Sadly because it seems in the last 15 years the US Congress is the place where moderate opinions and sanity go to die, due to the wild partisanship and the toxic pollution coming out of the media and the ability of everyone to be outraged about everything all the time the moderate voices have hard time being heard, or even existing because they are pushed to the extremes.

I'm pretty sure the prevalence if guns in almost all forms of pop culture skewed at males is really good market evidence that the majority of them do indeed like guns. (What's the last action movie, video game or toy store you saw that didn't have a gun, or some representation of a gun, in some form?)

Gun ownership seems to be in the high 40% range according to Gallup data.

http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/07/21/the-declining-cultu...

"People willing to tell a stranger on the phone that they own a gun" is not the same group as "people who actually own a gun". At all.

Exactly, I would assume it's probably higher than 40%.

There are an estimated 270M civilian-owned guns and 132M households in the US. So basically 2 guns per household. If you estimate gun ownership at 50%, that's 4 guns per gun-owning household.

My gut feeling (and that's all it is -- which makes it just about as accurate as the Gallup data) is that it's closer to 70% than 40%.

I've seen the number for "civilian owned guns" reported as being much higher, more like 310M. Not sure which number is most accurate, and it's entirely possible that none of them are, since we have no central firearms registry. But I would guess that the actual percentage of homes with at least one gun is higher than 40%.

or society becomes more and more self censoring if your thesis was true we should seen a decline in say drug testing for standard non sensitive jobs already.

Drugs are illegal. The fact that the war on drugs is waged disproportionally towards the poor does not make them legal in the places and social classes where it is relatively safe to get stoned.

But see what happened with nudity and the stigma. Once a nipple slip was a big deal. Nowadays a celebrity sex tape is welcomed with boredom. And there is hardly a person without someone else voluntarily sent naked pic on the smartphone. And when they leak it is usually meh

well in that case why all the fuss and fines over Janet Jacksons wardrobe malfunction at the Superbowl.

This was, of course, 100% predictable. Facebook has never given even a fractional, hypothetical shit about privacy, except in so far as they are absolutely compelled to by their users, which is rare. They certainly have shown little evidence that they have ever thought seriously about the deeper implications and privacy impact of any features they have rolled out.

I had a long, snarky comment about how no sane person would do X, Y, and Z on their public profile.

But then I realized graph search shows you to friends of friends. This is a potential shitstorm and I'm not sure I value my facebook account enough to be in it.

How would Facebook know who likes porn (except assuming everybody likes porn, obviously)? Those who say so on their Facebook profile are presumably not very concerned about that information leaking out?

Well...

Most are logged into FB when they browse their porn, so FB definitely knows what porn and how often the user browses it. Whether or not that info would end up in the graph, I don't know. I don't THINK it would? Not sure.

In any case, FB definitely HAS the information. Just a matter of whether they would let anyone else have it. I could see it being a valuable "background check" type service.

Actually, now that I think about it... FB tracks your browsing whether you are logged in or not. So they would probably have A LOT of information on people who like porn.

I would really love for you to prove that FB or any other website for that matter can sniff the site traffic of any other window or tab that you have open, when you are logged into facebook on another window/tab. Cookies and history are locked by domain, plain and simple. Unless you have a conspiracy that FB is planting spyware on peoples computers.

Almost every web site has a Facebook button. That's how they do it.

There is also the possibility of web site owners cooperating on the server side to track users. Maybe not as common yet, but not inconceivable.

Facebook has said clearly that the only information that will be searchable is that which is entered into Facebook and it will be displayed in accordance with whatever the original privacy setting was.

The people who shows up for "pr0n" wrote it as one of their interests on their profile and set that to public "friends" or "friends or friends".

The example in the article was people who liked the Facebook page "Porn films". Presumably there are people who liked specific actresses, etc... so yes it's still people who are not concerned enough with this being part of their Facebook profile.

They really only know if you like porn if you like a page that has the word porn in it. The statement in this post is a little broad.

I see Facebook as a walled garden, just as AOL was, and I have often looked forward to a day when people shared their updates in an open and non proprietary format.

This just points out that utopia has its downsides - even without a walled garden we would share this stuff - and the graph would still exist. Facebook is crap at privacy but frankly it's just sharing what we want to share (with our friends)

I think Scott McNeally was horribly right - privacy is gone

Many of my co-workers are "friends" with me on Facebook anyway, and I post so much pro-gun related material, that no-one has to ask to know that I'm solidly pro-gun. I also login to Facebook from work, on my work laptop (this is considered acceptable at my workplace, as long as you don't spend all day on there, and get your work done).

OTOH, I do my pr0n surfing at home, on my own time, using Chrome in incognito mode, and don't advertise anything about it to anyone.

The moral of this story? Stuff I want kept private, doesn't go on Facebook in the first place. If it's on Facebook, by definition, it's something I don't mind people knowing.

Site down. Cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cac...

Off topic, but that jumpy, sticky page title is really really annoying. It jumps over the point I like to scroll the top of the paragraph I'm currently reading to.

About You: [EDIT]

I like falsifying statistics and Lying to Facebook

I'm a 77 year old Filipino lady who's crazy about sci-fi and gets to some pretty wild outdoor parties

the solution is simple, don't put anything online you don't want anyone to see, this should be known by now.

Also this is the most wretched and terrible website layout I've ever seen, I couldn't even finish the article and will never return to this site.

I didn't know we had any competition named "Porn and Guns". Cool name though.

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