Facebook has been accused of breaking European law by tracking the web
browsing of anyone who visits the site, regardless of whether they
actually have an account with the social network.
The claim, which Facebook strongly denied, was made in late March in a
report commissioned by the Belgian data-protection agency, following
research at two universities in the country. It also said Facebook
continues to track people even if they opt out of being tracked in the
site’s privacy settings.
Researchers said Facebook places a cookie
on your computer, phone or tablet when you visit any of its pages, even
if you don’t have an account. Once that’s done, Facebook knows when you
visit a third-party web page that contains one of its plug-ins,
such as a ‘Like’ or ‘Share’ button, even if you don’t click that
button. These buttons appear on over 13 million websites, including some
run by the Government and the NHS.
The cookie, called ‘datr’, allows Facebook to follow your activity for
two years. Like many sites, Facebook uses this information to target
adverts to you. If the claims are true, Facebook would be breaching EU
privacy laws, which state that users must give consent to allow cookies
when first visiting a website.
However, Facebook said that the report contains “factual inaccuracies”. A
spokesperson said: “The authors have never contacted us, nor sought to
clarify any assumptions upon which their report is based. Neither did
they invite our comment on the report before making it public”.
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