Slammin Facebook and Open Graph

Facebook has created their new system for grabbing information and it is called Open Graph. It really should scare the hell out of you what it does. And for some they don't care and I guess that's okay for them. But for me, when I close FB I want it closed. The cookie lives on  my machine just waiting for whatever goes by and forwards that to FB. If a site developer wants the information, they can get it.

Some people claim we all know what we signed up for anyway. But I beg to differ since FB doesn't do a great job of disclosure in language we can understand. I see less posts from friends than ever before. But the ads in the right column have increased tremendously. The little FB cookie never sleeps. A case in point here; when I first moved to AZ in 2003 I rented a room from someone out in the west Phoenix area. I have not had any contact with her since leaving. She and my current landlord just popped up in the right column as people I may know as friend request suggestions. How did this happen? I do have my current landlord's email in my contact list but that is on my local machine and not my FB email address. Is the cookie garnering info off my computer I don't know about? And as far as the room rented in 2003 there isn't anything on my computer about her. I have not had contact with her since January 2004. How does FB know this as a suggestion?

I have also started getting an enormous amount of threads in my news feed from Lifehacker.com. I have not been to their site in months. And for sure not on this computer since I wiped it clean a couple of weeks ago when the new hard drive was installed. But now I have more from them than from my friends. Sure I can set them to ignore but how did this suddenly happen? Think about it. The cookie for FB never dies and somewhere a site most likely referenced Lifehacker and their cookie sent the information I was on their site, Lifehacker has a FB presence, their cookie picks up on this, their database shows me as a past visitor and voila! News in my stream from Lifehacker. Can you see how it works?

I have to say right now that I am not the paranoid type who browses the web with secret proxies or on the private settings either. The web has run on cookies for a long time. I like not having to re-enter site information. I don't mind that a site gather some information such as what browser I use, OS and stuff like that. But when a site is digging for information, information from years past, information that only I should know and have never put online, then that bothers me. I want to an informed FB user and I want them to disclose before they implement.

Of course I also know my small little rant will do nothing to stop or impede FB. Nothing I do will change either except I did remove the social icons from this site and my other site Pensive Penguin. I really didn't see any traffic from them anyway. I'm small time and I know it. But that doesn't mean I can't choose.

I still will not be browsing the web in paranoia. My habits will not change. But my awareness will. I will choose when I like something or not and not have it automatically pop up in my threads. I'm all for websites making a buck. I'm trying to make a buck or two here. I know that cookies are underlying in the web platform and I accept that. What I'm not accepting is that when I log out of that website, or when I leave the website, their cookie should stop. I should not have to worry about what is tracking and what is not. This time I think FB has gone too far in  allowing any developer all access to my information at any time.

Why if I want an app does it always want access to my information? So it can work of course. But why do I not get control of what it can access? FB says I can but have you ever tried to set an apps privacy settings? Almost everything is required. And why do the apps need 24/7 access even when I'm not online? Why do they need my friends information and friends of friends? What rights do I have of releasing their information just because I like something.

Bottom line for me is this is going too far. And I don't think Google or any other social site is going to be far behind. End of rant. I hope I have at the very least caused you to think about what the web can do to garner information about you.


Update: Minutes after posting and it might still be there, this is a partial section of an ad that showed up in my Adsense tower ad.

For those who do not know, ROI is an acronym for return on investment. There is no escaping the reach of FB and developers are going to harvest everything they can about you. Everything.