Whoa. That was weird.

[hudebnik]

So I follow a link in somebody's LJ post to a Washington Post blog entry. And over on the right side of the page is a panel labeled "Your Friends' Activity", listing Washington Post pages that have been liked, linked to, etc. by a bunch of people I know. How does the Washington Post know this? And which of my various social-network identities is it using to figure out whom I "know"? I mouse-over some of the entries, and they show Facebook URL's. Wait: I don't even have a Facebook account (that I know of)! Oh, I bet shalmestere didn't log out of her Facebook account the last time she used this computer. Still, a bit scary. I guess this is the "frictionless sharing" thing they were talking about.

Comments

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The annoying thing is that she may well have logged out of her Facebook account. Evidently Facebook sets cookies that track what you're doing whether you're logged in or not. Various people I know keep a separate web browser just for Facebook in order to quarantine the infection.

[ilaine-dcmrn.livejournal.com]

That works for regular cookies, but not flash cookies which cross browsers. I don't know that FB uses those, but many many sites do.