I was just wondering if anybody else was getting tired of Facebook. It seems like everybody has one now and people do not realize that they are sheep being herded by ad companies.
I found an interesting article about their “muffin tracking” techniques after doing some tests via a proxy server. Every time you click “Like” or view a profile a small file called ai.php is downloaded into your cookies. These files are used by the facebook servers to gather marketing info.
This is the article i read but i cannot vouch for the authors credibility in any way. If anyone has any more information on this please share.
I love to hate Facebook. I’m even working on some fanart for them: “Your Zuckerberg is showing.” snicker
There are always sheep; shepherds change now and then.
Then don’t ever “like” something. That’s what I do.
Look, social media is increasingly becoming an integral part of daily life. Technological and cultural change marches on. Sure you can opt out, but this will isolate you from the broader culture, which is fine if that’s what you want.
In fact, I have a lot of respect for friends who never got on Facebook, especially those in my generation…talk about resisting peer pressure!
I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. Same idea. I originally created a Facebook account when I was trying to get in touch with an old friend who had made it into the finals on America’s Got Talent (Johnny Lone Star). I created my account, and turned almost everything off. Later on I accepted friend requests from everyone who I could identify (mostly unicyclists). I got re-connected with lots of people I knew from Michigan and New York, which was nice.
For a while. My old friend Marc Held, from the Long Island Unicyclists and also the juggling club we had on Long Island, now lives in Maryland and has a family. All his posts were about his kids, who I never met. Same for several of the unicyclists I hadn’t seen in many years. So I hid some of the major posters on that stuff. I kept the ones that didn’t post so much, or posted quirky or interesting stuff.
I almost never posted anything at all. Just the occasional comment on other peoples’ posts. Then I kind of stopped looking at my page. Or my wall. Whatever that thing is. Are they two different things? My wife is the Facebook expert. She works it like an expert. I don’t understand it, because my Web experience is so old-school (like my web site). I still accept friend requests from people I actually know, but not from unicyclists I’ve seen at conventions but not actually gotten to know. I look at my Facebook account every couple of weeks or so.
So I’m on Facebook. I’m just not really “on” Facebook. 
Mixed bag
I will “like” things that people say but not into “liking” anything commercial, for sale or any fan pages.
Its an ok platform for keeping in touch with some of my scattered friends instead of emailing each of them separately. Always feel the “big brother” thing and don’t feel free to say whatever I think.
I have noticed seeing ads related to the words I have used in a status update which was a little scary. It is definitely a big marketing study.
i dont care if the ads are “following” me. I like not “like” most of the ads because they are mostly unicycle related, which is cool. And the IMO the number one thing for being online is to not put info online that you don’t want others to see.
They aren’t just tracking when you click like, its every time you view any profile as well. I really don’t think its wise to have such power. Think of it this way, there are a group of people out there called black hat hackers and they seem to have a deep blood lust for information. If Facebook can track you, who knows who else may be reading the trackers. I may be just a little paranoid but there seems to be power in having information on everybody’s online interactions. After much Google searching, everybody seems to deny the existence of any such material but admitting you have found a vulnerability would most likely lead to Facebook shutting it down/patching it.
A line , by some sage, has stuck in my mind.
" On the net, if your not paying for it, you are the product"
It helps me think about what I’m doing online.
Unfortunately you are probably the product if you are paying as well 
You’re more like the resource being exploited than the product. You are the resource that produces attention, and attention is the actual commodity. But yeah, if you’re going for clarity, that’s probably the best way to say it.
I agree with this, too. I don’t give a shit if they know I like unicycles, digital art, ponies, nerdy literature, heavy metal, or whatever it is I was looking at. Seriously. What are they going to do, give me relevant advertisements that are actually potentially useful rather than just annoying? NOOOOOOOOO 
Oh noes, every search engine worth its salt on the 'net does the same thing! Boycott search engines!
/obvious sarcasm
I hate Facebook, but this isn’t a reason to hate it. There are plenty of other reasons 
Whut is this face book thang? Iz it anythang like one of them thar sell phones?
Are you on facebook in any way?
like everything in life Facebook is what you make it, i don’t spend a lot of time on it so its not my life >_<
Example, my girlfriend when we first started hanging out was sending 300 text messages plus 300 bum messages per day… which is about 18 000 per month, and it was kind of sad… she was on it 24/7 and lived on Facebook. We started dating she barely sends 100 per day and visits Facebook once a week, people feel lonely so they get right into other peoples lives.
I completely agree, and there are plenty of stalkers on facebook as well. It seems to be an addiction or a substitute for real relationships.
I knew a girl who was constantly on facebook mobile probably sending hundreds of updates a day as well. It was hard to carry on a real conversation with somebody who is texting most of the day. Some people put way too much into it but I can not see what they are getting out of it.
I of course continue to use Facebook to keep in touch with a few distant friends or check out bands.
If you don’t like that kind of tracking, make sure you never visit any pages with “google” in the URL.
A handy rule of thumb to remember.
Yup, a little of both.
checking Facebook is kind of like checking your underwear after a fart. There’s most likely nothing new and if there is, it’s probably shit.
In seriousness though, i do feel followed or however you say it on there, big brother and all that collecting your info.
i resent the fact that it is literally impossible to “delete” your account, everything that you submit/post etc. is permanently out there, yes it remains your “property” or however they wish to phrase it but they have it and while you can "download all your facebook info, your not removing it, your downloading a copy of what they have. make me feel dirty:(
It was definitely a good idea not to update us on the latest terrorist plot you might be involved in, even if it involved overthrowing Libya. 
It looks like the USA and England farmed out torture to Libya and worked with Libya Secret Police.
But that’s true pretty much anywhere else. Including here. It’s a great reminder to all of us to think before we type!
You can delete your Facebook account, long as you can still log into it. You can’t delete someone else’s, unless your’re next-of-kin or other similar status (lots of red tape though). I’m pretty sure what you wrote will stay though, since it’s part of so many other peoples’ collected data, and otherwise you agreed to that when you signed up.
According to Willy, he says you can get them to delete your information if you send them an email. If you just deactivate your account it will still be there to access if you change your mind, but if you email them and clearly state that you want to be removed and don’t want any info stored for future use, maybe they have to actually do it. He says if he goes to sign in with his old account it says it does not exist so it should work.
If our data is being used to make money off us, surely we own some rights to that data including the right of removing it if we decide to, and if the small print were to prohibit that it needs to be changed! The anti-piracy/sharing laws are badly balanced enough- making our (private) data free for all advertisers and their (corporate) data sacred and protected by cost.
Alrighty I am teenage facebook user and everyone at my high school uses facebook too.
I don’t find it that intrusive or a breach of personal privacy knowing that information and keywords are collected from content I post or ‘like’ which influence the ads appear on my screen. This fear/discontent you guys seem to have seems unreasonable. What are you posting online/what pages are you ‘liking’ that are so very private and could possibly give anyone enough power over you to do whatever the hell it is your afraid they’re gonna do? Facebook is a FREE service so of course it has ads and tries to utilize the bountiful amount of information that it has access to to make it’s ads more affective and more profitable.
So does that make me “a sheep herded by ad companies”. Nope. No one forces you to click on ads, and until facebook start delaying or obstructing the content I actually want to see with ads then I don’t really care. The ads are harmlessly to the side, sometimes not even there at all… and more often then not unicycle related 
I pretty much only use facebook to talk to unicyclists, if I didn’t unicycle I would probably still have one as well because most young people now have them. I’m unclear though as to why you guys are so afraid of them collecting information about what you “like” and such??
+1