[ams6110]

we see several reasons to be concerned about this practice in the case of Superfish and others. Chief among those is privacy—the Superfish software can see all of the computer user's activity, including banking, email and Facebook traffic.

Never mind that Facebook sees all the computer user's Facebook traffic, and cross-indexes it with every other bit of data gleaned from their vast graph and uses it for profit.

[zevyoura]

Yes, and they do all that with the user's consent.

[dredmorbius]

Um, really? How informed is that consent?

What of sites that unilaterally change rules retroactively? Or fail to provide reasonable alternatives?

Facebook does all of the above.

To an extent that I don't trust it, and don't use it.

But there are plenty of other services which wave the "but you consented!" flag. Google comes to mind, and I've had my set of issues with them as well.

[ptaipale]

Umm, if you're using Facebook, it should be fairly obvious that you are giving your information to Facebook. Yes, I call that an informed consent.

[Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd]

And when you're browsing a web site with a Facebook Like button (that you don't click on), you're giving information about your browsing habits to Facebook and it's totally non-obvious.

[ptaipale]

Sorry, I don't understand. What does it mean that I am browsing a web site with a Facebook Like button that I don't click on?

[wampus]

If the button image is hosted on Facebook's servers (and it commonly is), they have a log of your request for it, including the page it was on (from the "Referer" header). This request is sent when you load the page, without the need to click on the button. Every site you visit that includes a Facebook resource gives them the ability to collect data about you and your habits. These are often part of a site's template, included without regard to the page it might appear on. You'd be surprised what a Referer URL can reveal about you.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

Well, it is at least in the T&Cs.

[userbinator]

You had to agree to have Superfish installed too, if Lenovo is to be believed.