Facebook of the service
Facebook is tracking the behavior of users who don't even have a Facebook account, users who have logged out of the service, and even users who have officially requested not to be tracked, a Belgian report reveals.
Facebook, for its part, rejects the complaints and speaks of "inaccuracies.".
The report, reports , was written by researchers at the University of Leuven and the Free University of Brussels. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the report was commissioned by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, which is now conducting an investigation into the company's practices.
The case concerns Facebook's "social plug-ins", such as the famous Like button, which are used on 13 million websites around the world.
Facebook installs cookie files on the computers of users who visit any page on Facebook.com, even pages that do not require a log-in.
When the user visits websites that contain Facebook social plug-ins, cookies transmit information to the company, even if the user does not use the Like button, Facebook Login or other plug-ins.
Cookies are small files that store user settings, information about previous activities, and other data required for the operation of the website that issues them. Facebook uses cookies to track user behavior for advertising purposes.
European data protection legislation provides that websites can only install cookies with the user's consent, unless the cookies are necessary either for connecting to the service (criterion A) or for offering services that the user has requested (criterion B).
Facebook's practices are alleged to be illegal because the service's social plug-ins track users without their consent. Since these plug-ins are by definition directed at Facebook users, without being necessary for the service to connect, they allegedly fail to meet either criterion A or criterion B.
The company offers users the option to opt-out of tracking by referring them to the relevant service of the European Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA). However, even in this case, it allegedly installs cookies that allow the identification and tracking of these users.
“European law is clear on this point,” says Brendan Van Alsenoy of the University of Leuven, a member of the report’s editorial team. “To be legally valid, user consent for online behavioral advertising must be voluntary [opt-in],” he explains to the newspaper.
“Facebook cannot rely on users’ inaction [i.e., failure to request an opt-out] to conclude that consent was given. As for non-users, Facebook has absolutely no legal basis to justify its current practices,” Van Alsenoy points out.
This would mean that Facebook's terms of use, which explicitly state that the company uses cookies on users who do not maintain an account on the service, or have logged out of it, are actually illegal.
A company spokesperson stated, however, that "this report contains inaccuracies. The authors have never contacted us or attempted to confirm the assumptions on which the report was based.".
Source: tovima.gr
