Mediaboss Marketing

The judge also said the plaintiffs failed to show they had a reasonable expectation of privacy from the social media company. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Facebook of tracking users web browsing activity even after they logged out of the social networking site.

The plaintiffs alleged that Facebook used the like buttons found on other websites to track which sites they visited, meaning that the Menlo Park, California-headquartered company could build up detailed records of their browsing history. The plaintiffs argued that this violated federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws.

US district judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, dismissed the case because he said that the plaintiffs failed to show that they had a reasonable expectation of privacy or suffered any realistic economic harm or loss.

Davila said that plaintiffs could have taken steps to keep their browsing histories private, for example by using the Digital Advertising Alliances opt-out tool or using incognito mode, and failed to show that Facebook illegally intercepted or eavesdropped on their communications.

Facebooks intrusion could have easily been blocked, but plaintiffs chose not to do so, said Davila, who dismissed an earlier version of the five-year-old case in October 2015.

Clicking on the Facebook like button on a third party website for example, theguardian.com allows people to share pieces of content to Facebook without having to copy and paste the link into a status update on the social network.

When a user visits a page with an embedded like button, the web browser sends information to both Facebook and the server where the page is located.

The fact that a users web browser automatically sends the same information to both parties does not establish that one party intercepted the users communication with the other, said Davila.

The plaintiffs cannot bring privacy and wiretapping claims again, Davila said, but can pursue a breach of contract claim again.

Australian internet security blogger Nik Cubrilovic first discovered that Facebook was apparently tracking users web browsing after they logged off in 2011. Responding to Cubrilovic, Facebook engineer Gregg Stefancik confirmed that Facebook has cookies that persist after log-out as a safety measure (to prevent others from trying to access the account) but that the company does not use the cookies to track users or sell personal information to third parties.

However, in 2014 Facebook started using web browsing data for delivering targeted interest-based advertising which explains why you see ads for products you have already been looking at online appear in your Facebook feed.

To address privacy concerns, Facebook introduced a way for users to opt out of this type of advertising targeting from within user settings.

We are pleased with the courts ruling, said a Facebook spokeswoman.

Read more from the original source:
Facebook can track your browsing even after you've logged out, judge says - The Guardian

Toronto Sun

Chinese student's accused kidnapper visited fetish-oriented social network with 'abduction fantasy' threads: FBI Toronto Sun The investigation unearthed another detail: Christensen had read up on abducting someone using the fetish-oriented social networking website "FetLife." Particularly, FBI agents say, he frequented a forum called "Abduction 101." Some of its sub threads ... and more »

Excerpt from:
Chinese student's accused kidnapper visited fetish-oriented social network with 'abduction fantasy' threads: FBI - Toronto Sun

Mashable

How Amazon nearly beat Facebook to winning the social networking crown Mashable It may seem like Amazon is suddenly hungry to take over the world, but the company has been focused on dominating the internet for a very long time, a fact we were recently reminded of via a profile on early social networking site PlanetAll. If you've ...

Read this article:
How Amazon nearly beat Facebook to winning the social networking crown - Mashable

Retweet. Comment. Like. The world has certainly changed over the last 10 years, with social media playing a massive role in the transformation. Social network giants have taken over peoples computers, phones, tablets, and lives.

For all the good that technology can impart through the ability to communicate with friends and family, and the quick dissemination of news (hopefully not fake), it is imperative that we also acknowledge the deleterious effects that social media can have on both our youth and adults.

Children are spending significant amounts of time on social networking sites, and it has the potential to negatively impact emotional intelligenceessentially, ones ability to identify and comprehend emotions in oneself and other people, and drawing upon this awareness to direct behavior and manage personal relationships.

The Grand Caf in Oxford, UK is the oldest coffee house in England, with an establishment date of circa 1650. The coffee shop novelty had a profound influence on the citizens of Oxford, as the coffee stimulant and social environment provided a way to share bright ideas and original thoughts that would go on to inspire genius inventions.

When you walk into the same coffee shop today, it is common to see young 20-year-old classmates looking down at their phones, swiping right on a dating application or double-tapping a friends post. Sure, it may be fun and help to pass the time, but what about looking up at your peers and engaging with them on an issue just discussed in class? Or perhaps asking your friend how they are coping with a recent family members passing and how you can help?

Emotional intelligence is threatened by the rise of social media, but so is general intellect. Again, there can certainly be benefits to having quick access to the most up-to-date news stories, possibly consuming new information, and interacting with diverse populations beyond what one may be experiencing in his or her physical environment.

Some researchers have actually suggested that social media can improve verbal and critical thinking skills. But it can be argued that spending hours upon hours each day swiping up and down on a social network feed is leading to a less-informed and less cultured society. Instead of picking up a newspaper to read entire articles (rather than a 140-character quip) or beginning a classic novel that could prove to be great discussion material during a college or job interview, our youth have been exposed to the glamour and excitement of pictures and one-line witticisms. Obsession over distant celebrities and the daily ventures of friends (who you often know only on a superficial level) has become all too frequent.

Social media will not die, at least not while we are around. And I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, suggesting that it will or should falter.

But what we can do is take it upon ourselves to encourage those around us to live in the moment.Engage with your children, colleagues, mentors, and strangers. Look them in the eye. Challenge them to escape from behind the touchscreen of a mobile device. We might just find something that we have been missing.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

More here:
Let's get off social media, and we might find something we've been missing - The Hill (blog)

KIEV, June 30. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko on Thursday rejected a petition demanding that he lifted his ban on Russian social networking site VKontakte.

"I consider it impossible to support the online petition to lift the ban on the VKontakte web portal," reads a statement, published by the presidents press service.

The president explained the move by the need to protect national interests, accusing social networking sites of manipulating the public opinion and disseminating dangerous information, including promotion of suicide via the so-called "groups of death." In addition, Poroshenko claimed that Russian special services used those websites to gather information about Ukraine and its citizens.

The petition, registered on May 16, gathered more than 25,000 signatures in less than a month.

Earlier this month, Ukraines High Administrative Court rejected a lawsuit by student Nikita Yevstifeyev, who demanded the presidential decree be declared unlawful.

The Kiev authorities decision to impose sanctions on the Russian social networks and other internet resources, as well as on the 1C accounting software, lead to popular discontent last month. Ukrainians filed about 60 petitions to various state bodies in a bid to lift the ban.

The banned Russian internet companies have a significantly large audience in Ukraine. Yandex claims to have as many as 11,000,000 Ukrainian users, while about 25,000,000 Ukrainian citizens use the Mail.ru platforms for communication. A total of 16,000,000 people in Ukraine use VKontakte, while another social network, Odnoklassniki, is frequented by about 9,500,000 users.

In other media

Follow this link:
Ukrainian president rejects petition to restore access to Russian social network VKontakte - TASS