Battle Which is the most detrimental to your privacy: Facebook or Google?

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Facebook.com and it's subsidiaries
Google.com and it's subsidiaries

HarborFront

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Oct 9, 2016
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You don't need to have a FB account or use FB in order to be tracked by FB.

Google however are the biggest trackers period.
You just reminded me of FB.

So, enabled Anti-Facebook in uBO

Thanks
 
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Venustus

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Dec 30, 2012
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Stopspying

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Jan 21, 2018
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A lot of people, both Facebook users and those who never have used Facebook directly, have no idea about how their 'Like' button tracks web users.

People tag other people in photos shared on Fakebook, if those people do not use Fakebook they may well never know that Fakebook has facial recognition data on them due to this.

As for which of Fakebook or G**gle I dislike the most on privacy grounds I find it very difficult to differentiate between the two of them. I don't use either out of choice, but they both choose to try and track me and take my data. One minute it can be G, the next it may be F that I consider to be the most detrimental to my online privacy. Can I sit on the fence?

@Spawn Good thread.

Edit - re-formatted post
 
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ZeePriest

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Jul 2, 2020
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Why can't we say both ?
Both are detrimental to your privacy but I think that google is the most detrimental atleast on your android smarphone. From android to play store permissions when installing an app to your email to your browser to your location and camera and to the weather app...etc. I mean facebook doesn't need all these permissions but that's just my opinion.
 

wat0114

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Apr 5, 2021
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Only recently did I activate a Facebook account for myself, and mainly because I needed it to watch a ceremony my son was involved in. It creeped me out just how much they seemed to know about possible contacts of mine. I kind of expected it, but it still shocked me when it listed numerous people I might know, and in fact do know.
 

rain2reign

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Jun 21, 2020
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Only recently did I activate a Facebook account for myself, and mainly because I needed it to watch a ceremony my son was involved in. It creeped me out just how much they seemed to know about possible contacts of mine. I kind of expected it, but it still shocked me when it listed numerous people I might know, and in fact do know.
The thing with FaceBook is, they profile you even without an account. Bahaviourial patterns, IP and lots more that have nothing to do with their service. Which is why I find them more detrimental than Google, even though Google does the same thing. But unlike the former, its their primary business, data, and securing of said data.
 

plat

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Sep 13, 2018
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Excerpt:

European Union lawmakers are mobilizing support for a ban on tracking-based advertising to be added to a new set of Internet rules for the bloc — which were proposed at the back end of last year but are now entering the last stretch of negotiations ahead of becoming pan-EU law.

If they succeed it could have wide-ranging implications for adtech giants like Facebook and Google. And for the holistic health of Internet users’ eyeballs more generally.

The move follows a smorgasbord of concerns raised in recent years over how such creepy ads, which use personal data to decide who sees which marketing message, can negatively impact individuals, businesses and society — from the risk of discrimination and predatory targeting of vulnerable people and groups; to the amplification of online disinformation and the threat that poses to democratic processes; to the vast underbelly of ad fraud embedded in the current system....

Europe’s parliament is trying to ban microtargeting – TechCrunch

Hopefully, this actually becomes reality instead of just talk.
 

South Park

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Jun 23, 2018
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Based on published reports, I think Google is worse because they proactively cooperate with very broad geofence and keyword searches.

I don't use Facebook, and I use Instagram proxies and deploy the anti-Facebook filters in all desktop browsers. Google is very hard to avoid, in part because of embedded YouTube videos in unexpected places. I can only afford an Android device, but I use it without a Google account, and I avoid Google services when possible, using open-source phone apps, proxies for YouTube, and Startpage for search. Since I can't live in a cave, I settle for "reasonable" privacy :)
 

rain2reign

Level 8
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Jun 21, 2020
363
In the end, it's all about finding the right balance that works for you. If you have used facebook for near 17 years of the services' existence as an example, there is little use in stopping now for the average user.
 
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