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by slitaz 3271 days ago
Proper English should have been: "Facebook may track your browsing even after...".

The judge can rule about lawfulness, otherwise it looks like they are a investigative reporter that just found out about the technical capability to track users in such a way.

4 comments

Oh, thanks, now I finally understand the title. Should be "may" or "It's legal to..." indeed.
Was confused about the headline as well, made it seem like this was uncovered by the judge during the course of some trial.
Interesting. For me, it's normal and understandable to use "can" to mean "is allowed to". I certainly know and understand the word "may", and I've heard it's technically more correct, but it feels a little antiquated or overly-formal, so I tend to not use it in conversation but might use it in writing.

One source that "can" is ok here: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/can-or-may

I didn't realize that this use of "can" is something that would cause confusion. Maybe there's a regional difference? I'm from the western United States.

I tried s/can/may/ above but it sounds archaic to my ear. It may be proper English but if it's fallen out of common usage, putting it up would be distracting too.