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Aren’t the Like buttons distributed around the Web and used on purpose by publishers? If your reading the New York Times, there’s a like button on the story, if

Aren’t the Like buttons distributed around the Web and used on purpose by publishers? If your reading the New York Times, there’s a like button on the story, if you click it, aren’t you explicitly telling Facebook your interested? Perhaps you object to the page impression being tracked even if you don’t like it? This seems unavoidable unless you mandate publishers host their own copy of the code behind these buttons and use a public API only to record the likes.

detaro 9y ago
> This seems unavoidable unless you mandate publishers host their own copy of the code behind these buttons and use a public API only to record the likes. Yes, that's the consequence (well, it does't really have to be an API triggered from the server, it can send the user there). Or a pattern where a user has to click a locally hosted link/button which then loads the Facebook one, and/or records permission to load it with further page visits. It's not really that much difference from an integration perspective if you include code in your page that loads a facebook iframe, or code that only does that after user interaction.
emiliobumachar 9y ago
As far as I know, Like buttons are partially served by Facebook, which then knows I've accessed the site (the NYT in your example). This happens even if I do not click the button, do not hover over it, and do not have a Facebook account.
- merreborn 9y ago
  > Like buttons are partially served by Facebook Yes, the default configuration has your page include javascript from facebook.net which the browser will request on every page view https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/like-button https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/like-button In the case of this the theguardian.com page it looks like they've got a webbug as the last element of the body, which results in a request to https://www.facebook.com/tr https://www.facebook.com/tr? Having facebook count views of your like button is probably considered a feature to publishers.
mtgx 9y ago
Facebook was tracking users even if they didn't click the Like button. This has nothing to do with page view tracking. And they were tracking even non-Facebook users this way. There's zero consent here no matter how you cut it. Worse yet, Facebook did this for years, and in the first years it swore it doesn't do that, and when they were caught doing it they said it was "just a bug"...twice. Facebook has 0% credibility at this point. Just look how they're ruining people's trust in 2FA security, too, now (although if they end-up ruining the trust in SMS 2FA, that wouldn't be too bad of an outcome actually...). This is a good article (although not complete, and only until 2014) on Facebook's awful, no-good, history of lying and tracking users without their consent: https://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks-history-of-tracking-you https://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks...
- netgusto 9y ago
  2FA notif scam was the last straw for me. Just deleted my account. So long and thanks for all the fish!
- wtfstatists 9y ago
  There's zero consent here no matter how you cut it. Thats not true. You implicity consent to usage policy of that website which then gave permission to FB. Ofcourse GDPR makes it illegel but until May 25 its not.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    Is it possible to even view the usage policy on one of these sites without hitting a page that loads one of these like buttons first?
hueving 9y ago
Loading the like button is enough for facebook to track you and infer your interests. You never have to click it.
xg15 9y ago
> This seems unavoidable unless you mandate publishers host their own copy of the code behind these buttons and use a public API only to record the likes. If Facebook means no harm, they could make this the encouraged way to include the like button.

detaro 9y ago

> This seems unavoidable unless you mandate publishers host their own copy of the code behind these buttons and use a public API only to record the likes. Yes, that's the consequence (well, it does't really have to be an API triggered from the server, it can send the user there). Or a pattern where a user has to click a locally hosted link/button which then loads the Facebook one, and/or records permission to load it with further page visits. It's not really that much difference from an integration perspective if you include code in your page that loads a facebook iframe, or code that only does that after user interaction.

emiliobumachar 9y ago

As far as I know, Like buttons are partially served by Facebook, which then knows I've accessed the site (the NYT in your example). This happens even if I do not click the button, do not hover over it, and do not have a Facebook account.

merreborn 9y ago
> Like buttons are partially served by Facebook Yes, the default configuration has your page include javascript from facebook.net which the browser will request on every page view https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/like-button https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/like-button In the case of this the theguardian.com page it looks like they've got a webbug as the last element of the body, which results in a request to https://www.facebook.com/tr https://www.facebook.com/tr? Having facebook count views of your like button is probably considered a feature to publishers.

mtgx 9y ago

Facebook was tracking users even if they didn't click the Like button. This has nothing to do with page view tracking. And they were tracking even non-Facebook users this way. There's zero consent here no matter how you cut it. Worse yet, Facebook did this for years, and in the first years it swore it doesn't do that, and when they were caught doing it they said it was "just a bug"...twice. Facebook has 0% credibility at this point. Just look how they're ruining people's trust in 2FA security, too, now (although if they end-up ruining the trust in SMS 2FA, that wouldn't be too bad of an outcome actually...). This is a good article (although not complete, and only until 2014) on Facebook's awful, no-good, history of lying and tracking users without their consent: https://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks-history-of-tracking-you https://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks...

netgusto 9y ago
2FA notif scam was the last straw for me. Just deleted my account. So long and thanks for all the fish!
wtfstatists 9y ago
There's zero consent here no matter how you cut it. Thats not true. You implicity consent to usage policy of that website which then gave permission to FB. Ofcourse GDPR makes it illegel but until May 25 its not.
- monocasa 9y ago
  Is it possible to even view the usage policy on one of these sites without hitting a page that loads one of these like buttons first?

hueving 9y ago

Loading the like button is enough for facebook to track you and infer your interests. You never have to click it.

xg15 9y ago

> This seems unavoidable unless you mandate publishers host their own copy of the code behind these buttons and use a public API only to record the likes. If Facebook means no harm, they could make this the encouraged way to include the like button.