Facebook

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Facebook is a social networking site massive data mining operation which reserves the right to collect information about you from other websites and use it to supplement your Facebook profile[1]. They did just that when starting in November 2007 they launched Facebook Beacon, in which Facebook's partner e-commerce websites, including eBay and Travelocity, provide Facebook with news of all your purchases (the partner websites knowing you are on Facebook because you have cookies from Facebook stored on your browser disclosing your Facebook identity to these other websites). Incredibly, Facebook then broadcast news of every purchase you made off-site to all of your Facebook "friends", and initially did this without even requiring the user to first opt-in to Beacon. Needless to say, there was a rapid public outcry over this practice.

As with other social networking sites such as Myspace and LiveJournal, Facebook is very popular among college students who post all sorts of personal information about themselves, without realizing the potential for it later coming back to haunt them. However, Facebook makes it deliberately difficult to delete your account and the information you have provided. Initially, they did not even provide this option at all.

References and notes

  1. This is explicity stated in their "privacy" policy