No Tracking … No Comments Allowed. Oh Facebook … tut-tut!

No Tracking … No Comments Allowed. Oh Facebook … tut-tut!

I saw an article on Edinburgh Council reserving money for the usage of digital technologies to improve social care in my city. I immediately went to respond to point the reader towards the great work of the DHI in Scotland, and started a message:

But, up popped this:

And it stopped me in my tracks. It was basically a little trapdoor that allowed Facebook.com to track me on the site (and perhaps other sites). There were no T&C links, and thus there was no way of knowing the scope of the cookie tracking.

In the end, I couldn’t actually post anything, without allowing Facebook to track me. And so, I was contributing something, but it was Facebook who was benefiting from my contribution.

As someone who doesn’t use — or trust — Facebook, this was the last thing I wanted, so I didn’t leave any comments. Perhaps the lack of comments on the new page also shows that others have been scared off?

Facebook will continue to fall in user trust if they keep tracking user activity, and using it for their benefit, and not ours.

It’s as if GDPR never happen. The Facebook model of harvesting citizen data on the Internet must end some time soon, and bring forward a true reward system for the data that citizens provide (and a deeper implementation of consent).