Evan Haning, wtop.com
UNDATED – As Facebook has grown, so has the amount of personal data it collects, including information about people who have not chosen to join the social network.
For the first time, Facebook explained how it tracks both users and non-users in a series of phone and email exchanges with USA TODAY.
When a Facebook user visits a Facebook.com page, two different kinds of tracking cookies are placed in the user’s browser — a “session cookie” and a “browser cookie.”
Non-Facebook members and Facebook users who are logged off receive the browser cookie.
When Facebook users are logged on, the session cookie records the websites they visit, along with their names, email addresses, list of friends and preferences as indicated by the “like” buttons they have clicked in the past.
The online habits of those who did not join Facebook – as well as Facebook users not signed into their accounts – are tracked by the browser cookie, but they are identified by number, not by name.
Both cookies log IP addresses, screen resolutions, operating systems and record which browser (Mozilla-Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google, etc.) a person is using. That information is kept for 90 days.
Facebook says it uses tracking data from these cookies to enhance both security and its users’ experiences, but does not yet use tracking data to target ads to specific people.
Privacy advocates say that when used creatively such data collection can be dangerous.
In Los Angeles, ABC-TV consumer reporter Ric Romero found that a man’s insurance benefits were canceled after an investigator saw a picture of him sitting on a beach, drinking a beer. The picture was on Facebook.
Insurance investigators told Romero that honest people have nothing to fear. But the man whose benefits were denied had to hire an attorney and take his case to a labor board in order to prove his injury was not fraudulent.
Facebook is getting pressure from government agencies here and abroad.
Facebook has been haggling with the Federal Trade Commission over privacy, and The Wall Street Journal reports the social network is nearing a settlement with federal regulators that would require it to get the approval of a user before making changes that expose his profile and activities to a wider audience.
The settlement also would require Facebook to undergo independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
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