[jeffdavis]

"Is facebook gather information on people who have no connection to them any different from hacking someone’s phone and listening to their messages?"

Usually any communication has two parties. So, you can collect information with neither party consenting (phone hacking, wiretapping, etc.), one party consenting, or both parties consenting.

I would think that most of the information they collect would count as one party consenting, so it's a step up from phone hacking. But it's still worrying, of course, because the single consenting party often doesn't know they are consenting (whether they should know or not is a different matter).