Tired of the endless unsolicited entreaties to “Connect via Facebook” as you surf the web? Excited for Y Connect and want to keep a clean palate beforehand? Scared about Facebook not necessarily having your best interests at heart when it comes to privacy?
In any case, Google engineer Brian Kennish, inspired by the most recent Facebook privacy and data debacles, has decided to create “Facebook Disconnect” i.e. a Google Chrome extension that obliterates all Facebook Connect functionality and all traffic from third party sites to Facebook servers if one searches the web through Chrome. (You can try it out here)
Facebook Disconnect will “presumably” prevent the sending of data back to Facebook across the one million sites that use the Facebook Connect service. So far the ones I’ve tested it on (ehem, Huffington Post) seem to be kosher as I no longer see Facebook integration.
Kennish says he created the extension to help quell his desire to delete his Facebook account and that he’s tested it out successfully across a sizable amount of previously Facebook-Connectable sites, including our own (screen shots above) with absolutely no encouragement from Google or Facebook, despite the fact that he works for the former, “Nobody at Google asked or encouraged me to do so, or probably, even knows who I am.”
Okay well now they do.
Thumbnail image: Gizmodo
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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