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by bogomipz 3065 days ago
>"Google and Facebook's hidden trackers across the Internet,..."

Are these "hidden trackers" mentioned in the article just the normal beacons or are they referring to something new?

Are these relevant if a person is not logged into neither FB or Google or if someone has uBlock Origin/Privacy Badger installed?
1 comments
yjftsjthsd-h 3065 days ago
Facebook, at least, is quite happy to build your shadow profile regardless of whether you're logged in.
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bogomipz 3065 days ago
Right, they're buying those from 3rd party data brokers I believe. This is the place where legislation is needed so people can own their own data. I would love to see some clearing house that sends out requests to people saying "Facebook or whomever is interested in acquiring your day" and you are given the option of approving or denying.
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lucb1e 3065 days ago
> they're buying those from 3rd party data brokers I believe

Huh, why would they need to? The first time you load an element from Facebook (be it a like button, comments or something else) you just get a unique cookie and there's your Facebook profile. Now it's a waiting game until you log in and they can connect it to a person, or you do something else that allows them to identify you (maybe visiting friend's pages, and they already have WhatsApp data so they know who talks with that specific set of people? Idk, there's just so much data and so many options). Or they can never connect it to a person but they can still show you good ads based on that browsing history.

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bogomipz 3065 days ago
>"Huh, why would they need to?"

Because by doing so they are able to compile additional information about people, data that's not available to them via online tracking. See:

https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user...

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