Respectively, "Like" and "Tweet" buttons notify Facebook and Twitter that a user has visited a particular Web site even when they don't actually click on the buttons, according to a study done for The
Wall Street Journal. "For this to work, a person only needs to have logged into Facebook or Twitter once in the past month," The Journal reports. "The sites will continue to collect browsing data,
even if the person closes their browser or turns off their computers, until that person explicitly logs out of their Facebook or Twitter accounts."
Facebook, Twitter, Google and other
social widget-makers say they don't use browsing data generated by the widgets to track users, while Facebook says it only uses the data for advertising purposes when a user clicks on a widget to
share content with friends. Still, "Revelations about the social widgets come amid growing concern about the privacy of Internet and smartphone users," The Journal writes. In particular, members of
Congress have introduced at least five privacy-related bills this year, including three that aim to create a mechanism that would let users disable tracking.
Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »