4 ms·

I don't feel Facebook is anywhere close to the levels of omnipresence Google has. It's rare if some random webpage doesn't talk to Google servers, be it analyt

I don't feel Facebook is anywhere close to the levels of omnipresence Google has. It's rare if some random webpage doesn't talk to Google servers, be it analytics, fonts, CAPTCHAs, "sign in with Google" buttons or whatever. And they're in every other smartphone. And they handle lots of payments. And so on. Facebook, on the contrary, rarely shows up. Sometimes there are like buttons, but I'd say they're rare. Or maybe I'm visiting the kind of sites where they're rare. They may try to spam me (usually with some "you have new friend suggestion" with another person I've never ever met) but not like my mail filters care about that. And I occasionally log in there to check if someone had posted something (usually nope). I fed it some public information, never ever fed it anything non-public (not just private but non-public - even though I tag some public stuff as "private" there is no harm if that becomes public), and don't post anything there myself. I'm going to say a heresy but... that's feels basically harmless (and absolutely useless) to me.

fortythirteen 9y ago
Any time there's a Facebook widget in a page, they're siphoning off your info, whether you use it or not. That's why they were freaking out over Safari's third party cookie expiration change.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  Can you elaborate how they are siphoning off someone's info if someone has uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and someone doesn't use FB?
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    You might want to add uMatrix or NoScript, but having said that I don’t know if uBlock might not be enough.
jgalt212 9y ago
> Facebook, on the contrary, rarely shows up. How is this even remotely possible given the advertising duopoly?
- drdaeman 9y ago
  No clue, really. Maybe it's just me and my browsing preferences/patterns - but their stuff quite rarely shows up on uMatrix switchboard, and given that it has block-by-default policy I sort of visit its button quite frequently. On the contrary, I see Google domains a lot, like on every other resource (if not worse). I really always thought it's monopoly - just Google. With some small or local vendors (e.g. Yandex ads are huge on Russian-language resources) here and there, but mostly just Google.
ysavir 9y ago
I think you missed my point. Facebook's goal has always been to control the users. There have been numerous articles recently about how Facebook was designed to mess with user psychology to increase their engagement. They're practicing social engineering, and that to me is incredibly harmful. And while Google is much more omnipresent (no argument there!), at least their tactics involve letting the users do what they would normally do, even if they're spying in on it. Google might be watching, but at least they aren't controlling.
- drdaeman 9y ago
  Got it now. Yeah, I guess you're right - Facebook is insistent on suggesting their way of doing things, constantly trying to tell me what to read and what to do. --- In my personal experiences they have failed, though. All their suggestions were way off and totally useless. So I just auto-ignore their mails, dismiss the notifications just by type without checking and whatever and use only what I want to use (they have some good uses). Heck, even their Android apps are so awful, so even though I wanted some of features they sort of forced me to not install any apps and just use a browser. ;)
- bcherny 9y ago
  Maybe one is just better at PR than the other? FB manipulates people through notifications and ordering in news feed; Google does it with notifications and ordering in search results. I don't see a substantial difference.
fumar 9y ago
Facebook, similar to Google uses their pixel to cookie you. See here: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-pixel https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-pixel. If you advertise on Facebook, the pixel is part of your site. The pixel does not have any visual representation. Its there tracking your behavior and aggregating it for advertising purposes. Not to mention, FB apps live on most smartphones. Seems to me they have the whole omnipresent thing covered.

fortythirteen 9y ago

Any time there's a Facebook widget in a page, they're siphoning off your info, whether you use it or not. That's why they were freaking out over Safari's third party cookie expiration change.

bogomipz 9y ago
Can you elaborate how they are siphoning off someone's info if someone has uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and someone doesn't use FB?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  You might want to add uMatrix or NoScript, but having said that I don’t know if uBlock might not be enough.

jgalt212 9y ago

> Facebook, on the contrary, rarely shows up. How is this even remotely possible given the advertising duopoly?

drdaeman 9y ago
No clue, really. Maybe it's just me and my browsing preferences/patterns - but their stuff quite rarely shows up on uMatrix switchboard, and given that it has block-by-default policy I sort of visit its button quite frequently. On the contrary, I see Google domains a lot, like on every other resource (if not worse). I really always thought it's monopoly - just Google. With some small or local vendors (e.g. Yandex ads are huge on Russian-language resources) here and there, but mostly just Google.

ysavir 9y ago

I think you missed my point. Facebook's goal has always been to control the users. There have been numerous articles recently about how Facebook was designed to mess with user psychology to increase their engagement. They're practicing social engineering, and that to me is incredibly harmful. And while Google is much more omnipresent (no argument there!), at least their tactics involve letting the users do what they would normally do, even if they're spying in on it. Google might be watching, but at least they aren't controlling.

drdaeman 9y ago
Got it now. Yeah, I guess you're right - Facebook is insistent on suggesting their way of doing things, constantly trying to tell me what to read and what to do. --- In my personal experiences they have failed, though. All their suggestions were way off and totally useless. So I just auto-ignore their mails, dismiss the notifications just by type without checking and whatever and use only what I want to use (they have some good uses). Heck, even their Android apps are so awful, so even though I wanted some of features they sort of forced me to not install any apps and just use a browser. ;)
bcherny 9y ago
Maybe one is just better at PR than the other? FB manipulates people through notifications and ordering in news feed; Google does it with notifications and ordering in search results. I don't see a substantial difference.

fumar 9y ago

Facebook, similar to Google uses their pixel to cookie you. See here: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-pixel https://www.facebook.com/business/a/facebook-pixel. If you advertise on Facebook, the pixel is part of your site. The pixel does not have any visual representation. Its there tracking your behavior and aggregating it for advertising purposes. Not to mention, FB apps live on most smartphones. Seems to me they have the whole omnipresent thing covered.