{"id":6060,"date":"2010-05-13T20:07:43","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T10:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/power-up.space\/?p=6060"},"modified":"2010-05-13T20:07:43","modified_gmt":"2010-05-13T10:07:43","slug":"facebook-shares-user-information-across-the-web-by-default","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/?p=6060","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Shares User Information Across the Web By Default"},"content":{"rendered":"

AVG warns you need to logout of Facebook if you want to maintain your privacy<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melbourne<\/strong>, 13 May 2010. <\/strong>AVG (AU\/NZ) recommends that everyone consider the advice from AVG Technologies\u2019 Chief Research Officer, Roger Thompson, and actively LOG OUT of Facebook every session in order to prevent their privacy being compromised if they don\u2019t. As Thompson revealed today\u2026<\/p>\n

Pssst… You want to see something reeeeeaaaally scary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here it is…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On 29th April 2010, I surfed to CNN.com to check out the news… something I do quite often… I happily read about the oil spill and the asteroids, and then noticed the bit I have circled in red. It\u2019s a bit hard to read, but it says \u201cLog in | sign up\u201d, and then \u201cFriends\u2019 activity\u201d, followed by \u201cView more friends\u2019 activity\u201d!<\/p>\n

Not \u2018View friends\u2019 activity\u2019, but \u2018more\u2019 friends\u2019 activity. I\u2019m not logged in, but CNN knows who my friends are on Facebook! And just to prove it, the next line shows a post by one of my friends, recommending a video.<\/p>\n

Given that Facebook has 400 million users, the odds make it unlikely that they just \u2018happened\u2019 to grab one of my friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I thought to myself, \u201cThey knew who I am! Dang! I wonder how many other web sites know that?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, a couple of weeks later, I noticed that CNN.com had changed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now it says, \u201cHi! Log in or sign up to personalise\u201d, followed by \u201cLog in with Facebook to see your friends activity\u201d, followed by some generic Facebook messages.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on? Is CNN no longer getting the information, or is CNN no longer disclosing that they have it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer is neither of those.<\/p>\n

As is often the case, it turns out there\u2019s a more prosaic, but still alarming explanation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of my AVG colleagues, Jas Dhaliwal, knew what was going on. He explained…<\/p>\n

\u201cCNN and over\u00a0100,000 other web sites<\/a> are using Facebook\u2019s new\u00a0social plugins<\/a> that were announced at their F8 Developers conference a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018social plugins\u2019 are designed to show which of your friends are voting \u2018\u201clike\u2019 on a site\u2019s specific news stories. If none of your Facebook friends are clicking the \u2018Like\u2019\u00a0button, then Facebook aggregates the popular stories that are \u2018liked\u2019 on the site as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social plugins take the step of Facebook Connect, one step further. Connect was designed to be a \u2018Single Sign-On\u2019 for the web. In other words, you log into\u00a0Facebook once, and when you visit other sites around the web, it would log you on to their site, using the Facebook credentials already provided.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the recent F8 conference, Facebook announced that they were going to remove the Connect button. So, if you\u2019ve logged in once, it will remember your login.\u00a0The social plugin caches that login data\u00a0and uses a custom API to show which of your friends (i.e. your social graph) are visiting the same site.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy? Because, I\u2019m likely to stay longer at a site, if I know my friends have\u00a0been there\u2026 so says the psychological theory.\u00a0Facebook have done a very, very bad job at explaining this.\u00a0For most people,\u00a0when they see CNN\u2019s Facebook plugin\u00a0they are surprised, because as a user, you haven\u2019t given CNN or Facebook explicit permission to connect to your social graph\/friends list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jas Dhaliwal concludes, \u201cIf you want to stop this type of behaviour, and thus do not want to see the stories that\u00a0your friends are interested in as they visit the web, simply click \u201cLog Out\u201d of Facebook. This is something nearly no one does. Simply, closing a Facebook tab or window DOES NOT\u00a0log you out of Facebook. I think the user community needs to be educated specifically on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Folks… you need to LOG OUT of Facebook once you finish reading posts. You just don\u2019t know what information could be leaking.
\nJust today, CNN was talking about the so-called Bling-Ring, where some LA kids made a point of robbing celeb\u2019s homes. They would use Google earth to survey the homes, and find ways in. Paris Hilton lived in a gated community, but the kids found via Google Earth that there was a gully that went under a fence, and when they went and looked, found they could easily walk right in.<\/p>\n

Then they simply watched Twitter until Paris announced that she was going out, and walked right up to her house.<\/p>\n

And what about the social platforms that have location information? Telling your friends \u201cI\u2019m at the coffee shop\u201d is fine for those interested in joining you for coffee, but there will be bad guys out there with larceny in their hearts.<\/p>\n

Privacy, folks…. it\u2019s a serious issue.<\/p>\n

About AVG (AU\/NZ) Pty Ltd \u2014 <\/strong>www.avg.com.au<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Based in Melbourne, AVG (AU\/NZ) Pty Ltd distributes the AVG range of Anti-Virus and Internet Security products in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. AVG software solutions provide complete real-time protection against the malware, viruses, spam, spyware, adware, worms, Trojans, phishing and exploits used by cyber-criminals, hackers, scammers and identity thieves. AVG protects everything important and personal inside computers \u2014 documents, account details and passwords, music, photos and more \u2014 all while allowing users to work, bank, shop and play games online in safety. AVG provides outstanding technical solutions and exceptional value for consumers, small to medium business and enterprise clients. AVG delivers always-on, always up-to-date protection across desktop, and notebook PCs, plus file and e-mail servers in the home and at work in SMBs, corporations, government agencies and educational institutions.<\/p>\n

AVG products actively protect over 110 million users worldwide, including more than 4.6 million users in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

AVG (AU\/NZ) has more than 3300 resellers across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AVG warns you need to logout of Facebook if you want to maintain your privacy\u00a0 Melbourne, 13 May 2010. AVG (AU\/NZ) recommends that everyone consider the advice from AVG Technologies\u2019 Chief Research Officer, Roger Thompson, and actively LOG OUT of Facebook every session in order to prevent their privacy being compromised if they don\u2019t. As<\/p>\n

Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6061,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions\/6061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.impulsegamer.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}