Quote:
Originally Posted by Suzy
Hmmmm....
I do love fb but what really bugs me is that things I have previously googled (shoes, plasma's etc) show up as adverts on my page. It's rather freaky because I feel like I'm being stalked. So now I've learned that many things I google may come back and bite me. 
I've just re-looked on my fb page, and yep, there are at least two ads there referring to pages I've visited.  Wonder what my fb page would look like if I was a bad girl.  
Thanks for the read, Marc.  |
Same will happen with eBay. Do a search on eBay, even if you're not logged in. Then wait for the next news/promo email and I garantee you the items you've searched earlier on will be featured in the email. Every website you visit leaves small text files on your hard drive. That's what they call cookies. Every browser has them enabled by default. As a matter of fact a lot of websites will not work correctly if you disable them. When you login on IIS for example a cookie gets saved on you HD. That's called a session cookie. That's the only way the website know you're still logged in when you post or jump from pages to pages. If you tick 'remember me' the cookie will store your username and pwd, so next time you go to IIS the website will read the cookie and log you in automatically. That's the normal use of a cookie. So now that you understand how a website can read and write on your HD, what FB does is set a cookie like IIS but the difference is that this cookie will record every other websites or links you click on that may contain a FB gizmo, such as 'I Like' icon, or 'Add me to FB' etc.. because all those icons contain tracking code. Then the next time you logon to FB, the website will read the cookie and know Suzi likes shoes, plasmas, etc... That's a simplistic explanation but you get the idea. As far as initial friends and contacts go in FB they're harvested after you've first visited the site then use your MSN messenger, Skype, Windows mail or other client. Too easy.