Post-Beacon, Facebook Still Snooping

Even though Facebook has backed off its Beacon advertising system which many people called invasive, a recent Computer Associates study finds Facebook still snoops into user's affiliate site activity. Computer Associates PestPatrol Research Engineer, writing on the company's blog said, "Facebook is collecting information about user actions on affiliate sites regardless of whether or not the user chose to opt out, and regardless of whether or not the user is logged into Facebook at that time."

Facebook's Beacon system, through partnerships with other sites, would collect people's purchase behavior on those sites and then report those activities in the person's Facebook newsfeed. Previously and opt-out system, it's now opt-in but according to Computer Associates, Facebook is still collecting the affiliate site activity even if a person has opted out.

Facebook isn't denying the practice, writing in a statement "When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Facebook Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well."