Re: Facebook's shadow database of info on you.
Again, it has nothing to do with friends.
It is the data FACEBOOK collects about people when THEY ARE NOT AT FACEBOOk.COM. It is the information they collect when you visit a newspaper website, online shop, portals, web presences for businesses, other people's blogs etc. These sites have embedded Facebook (and other social media) Like buttons, tracking scripts and cookies.
This collects a lot of information about people, includng people who are NOT Facebook members. They have at least the browser fingerprint or IP address of the visitor, plus the visit information, which pages on those sites they visited, possibly how long they were on those pages etc.
The browser fingerprint and IP address are enough to be classed as "personally identifiable information" under EU law. Facebook (and other companies) cannot collect this information without the visitor's permission. That is the problem here, non-Facebook members have never signed up to Facebooks terms and conditions and therefore Facebook is breaking the law if they collect this information, when these non-members visit external websites.
Members should also be able to opt out of this tracking, but they cannot.
Theoretically, this also applies to advertising companies that track across different sites, I could see this being expanded to cover them, once this one has been cleared up and a precident set.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
