Facebook Tracking

So far my research is going amazing. One of my sources I am going to use is called “Facebook Sued Over Tracking Cookies.” This article talks about how Facebook was sued by many different people around the United States because cookies, which are little bits of data that are collected about your internet activity by some company such as Facebook, used by Facebook continue to stay in use even after the user logs out, which violates three federal laws; the federal wiretap act, the stored electronic communication act, and the federal computer fraud and abuse act. This article is great for my research because it pertains directly to my topic, which is that Facebook can track any of the user’s through the internet. The article shows that Facebook can already track the user when the user is logged in, which they are allowed to do. However, the article reveals that Facebook can also track the user after they log out through the use of cookies that remain even after the user logs out of their account. Facebook issued a fix for some of these cookies that remain after the user logs out, but they decided to leave some of them, which Facebook said is for security reasons. This forces the user to accept that Facebook doesn’t mean any harm when these cookies stay after the user logs out, which can be very difficult for someone to accept. However, those cookies that are supposedly for security reasons still violate the three federal laws that are listed above. The suit that has been filed says that any collection of data by Facebook after the user logs out is considered violating those federal laws. This means that the users should not be forced to accept that Facebook doesn’t mean any harm by using those cookies. Facebook should be forced to remove those cookies from the site, whether or not they are supposed to be for security reasons. The article mentions that the user can use another browser to access Facebook and use the main browser to browse the internet or that the user can delete every Facebook cookie that exists. However, some users may not know how to delete all of their browsing cookies and using two different browsers can be a hassle and there is a possibility that the user will forget to use the different browsers. Thus, the fact stands that Facebook should not be allowed to keep cookies on a computer after the user logs out.