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I suspect that most people do not in fact have a Facebook account. Last I checked, world population was over 7 billion and Facebook did not have 3.5 billion ac
by bzbarsky 9y ago
I suspect that most people do not in fact have a Facebook account. Last I checked, world population was over 7 billion and Facebook did not have 3.5 billion accounts. Or did you mean "most people who live near where I live"? But even there, the existence of Facebook shadow accounts means they will stalk you even if you do not have an account.
As a further point of fact, Facebook (and Google; Facebook is not alone here) stalks even people who _can't_ have a Facebook account. For example, children under 13 in the US.
- slededit 9y agoCertainly there is no defense there. I will say though, much like real life one should be careful of the company they keep - in this case websites which partner with these companies. We should be just as pissed or more at the websites enabling this behavior.
- bzbarsky 9y agoYeah, I really wish websites would just stop embedding Facebook Like buttons. That would already help a lot.
- alphaalpha101 9y ago>As a further point of fact, Facebook (and Google; Facebook is not alone here) stalks even people who _can't_ have a Facebook account. For example, children under 13 in the US. Surely this is illegal, though? One way to get the laws to ban this sort of dragnet commercial surveillance of people would be to appeal to the 'think of the children' argument and ban companies from tracking information about anyone under 13. That would also stop them from tracking information about anyone that hasn't totally confirmed that they're over 13.
- bzbarsky 9y ago> Surely this is illegal, though? I don't know enough about the law on this to comment. > would be to appeal to the 'think of the children' argument Tempting, though I worry about unleashing demons even if you think they're on your side... ;)