* the title is an obvious homage to 1984, with a “(?)” for lawsuit-proofing.
So Facebook Connect has arrived, the ability to FB-Like! a page anywhere on the internet as long as the owner of that page has enabled that feature. Another feature is you go to e.g. www.docs.com, and if you are logged into Facebook at the same time, it scarily says “Hello [Your Name Here]!”.
Through the magic of the internet, it doesn’t mean that the site has access to your Facebook account details, BUT, it does mean Facebook theoretically knows what sites you are visiting which are part of its Connect network, AND they can also store this information. Imagine someone having the list of all the sites you’ve visited the last couple of days.. weeks.. months?
Even if you’ve logged out of Facebook, they still store cookies on your computer that can be sent to them when an external websites load that “Like!” button from Facebook’s server, and even if you’re logged out, they can theoretically store information in those cookies that links your web-browser with an account that was logged into Facebook on that browser.
If you don’t mind that someone knows which websites you’ve been visiting, then you don’t have a problem with this. If you do mind, then… potentially there’s a problem.
According to the guide, FB Connect works when the website has code that loads information from: www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php*
From what I can see while opening www.docs.com, it loads 3 external links from Facebook, that begin with:
www.facebook.com/extern/*
api.facebook.com/restserver.php*
static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect/xd_proxy*
I’ve added these addresses to my ad-blocker (I use Proxomitron, Firefox users can use Ad-Block Plus). That way if my web-browser asks to download some data from these addresses, that request will be refused.
I don’t know if Facebook is spying on its users or not, maybe not, but what if they are? I’d rather be not spied upon.
