The product manager in charge said: “people were able to mentally connect that with how their browser controls work, where they can clear their history. We clearly state that … the information isn’t connected to your account.” [0]
So, they deliberately designed it to make people think it works like a browser's clear history feature (which does delete everything), but instead, it 'disconnects' the data (but doesn't delete anything).
Such a bunch of weasels.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/20/facebook-...
I think it's more like a very big weasel and his cult-followers.
Smart, announcing it without it being usable, so when it's silently rolled out later people will have forgotten about it. Never change, FB.
"I am a VP at Facebook and my income is based on how effectively we track and abuse the privacy of the general public, whether or not they are user's or have agreed to any contract with my employer"
I mean it's also worth noting that to access the misleading "clear history" feature you have to create an FB account so they can track you more.
rm -rf /var/tracking_data/jforberg
"How do we delete the data, and still profit from it?"
It’s like designing a dangerous rollercoaster with no concern for safety, and then when people start dying complaining about how hard it was to make it safe.
Nasty, unethical, criminal and morally bankrupt company. There are no other words to describe it.
If I was investing a a GDPR complaint, this article contains a lot of information that would be useful when asking questions to FB.
The reality is that once data leaves your device, it's not yours anymore. It will almost certainly be used to track and manipulate you. If someone is talking about giving you control over "your data", it should be a signal that they intend to do the opposite. (like the OP).
Maybe we need to give up this fantasy of "your data" before we can embrace technologies such as ad-blocking, encryption, and frankly abstaining from using abusive software.
(IANAL) At what point can we claim that Terms of Service statements are agreed to under duress, and regain rights to our data as the rightful copyright owner of such data?
So if you don't have FB, presumably you already don't have UID, so you're on equal footing with Facebook users that use this future. They are tracked, but tracking data is not connected to their UIDs.
So there's no change for people not using facebook, you'll be tracked like before no matter what.
EDIT: Any moment now, I suppose it might take a while to type up a thorough, elucidating answer.
Presumably, their tracking is more effective if you simply don’t create an account (so they never rotate the ID).
/Insert a rant about perverse incentives and dark patterns here
I try to post this on every Facebook related post: Leave Facebook. You'll thank yourself a year from now.
Facebook is a morally bankrupt company and the only real fix is to black hole their many domains.
I disagree. It's a typical Facebook step.
Sneaky, shifty and weasely.
Can I delete a private message from your database?
Can I delete your record of a status I wrote from your database?
Can I delete access logs from a website that was using a FB pixel from your database?
“Exciting features include: Cycling through woods! Reading a story in a book made of paper! Now you can control what you see, do and think!”
And all they'd have to do is turn it back on.
I'm not under any illusions they're not trying to track me despite me not having an account with them.
Data collection, according to the GDPR, requires a reason. If I have a Facebook account you're in a relationshio with the company and so they can argue that you agree to providing your data (it's all there in the 12000, or so, "User Agreement".
If you do not use Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp you are not in a business relationship with the company and they have no right to collect and store your data.
I have a feeling that there's a very nasty legal fight with the EU brewing here in a few years time.
Why not make it like a permanent toggle that says “never associate off-Facebook activity with my account (to advertise to me and sell me stuff I don’t need)”?
I don’t see anyone being creeped out or annoyed by “backpack ads” (as seen in that dramatization video of this feature) and still being ok with seeing continuous creepy and annoying ads for shoes or something else later.
Data Re-Identification:
However, I think these activity tools are extremely useful. They allow me to see all (or at least most) of what Facebook/Google has on me and it allows me to practice and implement strategies that prevent the corps from collecting the data in the first place.
> If I disconnect my activity, will I stop seeing ads?
No.
> Does disconnecting my activity mean that it's deleted?
No.
> Why am I seeing businesses I don't recognise?
Because they are creepier than you thought.
Facebooks attempts at making up for their mistakes almost always leave me feeling worse about the company
Is there a similar for iOS that anyone is aware of?
TL;DR: This is a bullshit PR piece to assuage worries that Facebook data-mining the internet. They still are. Move along.
“But we still keep it and the entire unique fingerprint”
We aren't going to stop tracking you, and "bugs" and "inadvertent" changes may "accidentally" reset your settings.
((facebook containers -> it looks after you))
ironically, posted with Chrome
block all 3rd party cookies, block all trackers, clear cookies on exit, uBlock Origin extension,
and blocking FB related sites in /etc/hosts file
Shouldn’t this incur a rather heavy fine?
We here at Facebook realized you don't trust our apps, so we made another app that makes you think our apps are safe. Despite this just being another app within our portfolio of tracking tools. Please download and install, otherwise the other apps may not work eventually. Trust us. ಠ_ಠ
And data hoarding.
Like when they asked for permition (in a typically snaeky, weasely Facebook way) for permission to suck up your entire phone book data and message history (and even contents) from your Android device?
I want a bunny!
A hard cut from facebook is surprisingly easy. The biggest challenge is getting over the mentality of fear that it will somehow be challenging.
Just because the people you added on facebook filled it with bullshit, doesn’t mean it’s like that for everyone.
I’d love to get away from them, but I have yet to find a workable alternative.
I use Facebook in a container tab in Firefox, completely cut off from my regular browsing. Before that, I used to block it using Privacy Badger.
[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...
