Facebook Says It Tracked People Who Didn’t Use Facebook Because Of A Bug

For example, while Facebook says a “claim” from the report suggests there’s no way for users to opt out of the company’s “social ads,” the report says, bluntly, “users can opt-out from appearing in so-called Social Ads.” As the Wall Street Journal points out, Facebook also substitutes “tracking” for “web impressions.”

The researchers point out that Facebook’s “social plug-ins” — which other sites frequently use — tracked users who didn’t use the plug-ins, were not logged in to Facebook, and who did not even have a Facebook account. In its response post, Facebook conceded that “a bug” affected “a few” users and would be fixed. The original report, however, suggested the problem could be much more widespread: “Facebook’s ‘Like Button,’ the most popular Facebook social plug-in, is currently present on more than 13 million sites, covering almost all website categories including health and government websites.”

I Write Things.