The "USA Today" report also says that Facebook also tracks non registered users, even if they just visited Facebook once. A similar technique already used by sites such as Google, who keep track of users activity.
Facebook track users through a series of plug-ins and cookies, and they actively record a users IP Address, Screen Resolution, Operating System and their Internet Browser Version.
Facebook's Engineering Director Arturo Bejar was quoted as saying "Every time one logs onto Facebook it inserts a "session cookie" and a "browser cookie" into one's browser. If one simply visits the site without signing up on the browser, cookie is inserted".
Peter Eckersley from the Electronic Frontier Foundation spoke about the Facebook tracking and said "Tracking data can be used to figure out your political bent, religious beliefs, sexuality preferences, health issues or the fact that you're looking for a new job".
After a recent interview on "The Charlie Rose Show" with Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerberg and its Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Joe Barton and Ed Markey, who serve as Co-Chairmen on the "Congressional Privacy Caucus", wrote a letter to Zuckerberg asking him to explain a recent patent application for "technology that includes a method to correlate tracking data with advertisements", Zuckerberg has been given until the 1st December to respond.
As Facebook grows even bigger and edge towards 1 Billion members, it makes sense that they will want to track a users activity, it allows them to provide a more reliable and exciting experience for the user, and by collecting such data brings huge financial gain for Facebook as a company, because with that kind of information, it becomes invaluable to online retailers who desperately want to know what internet users are interested in and what sites they are visiting.
Watch "The Charlie Rose Show" interview with Zuckerberg and Sandberg below.
Image via Wikipedia.
