untaken_name: Oh boy! Is this the thread where we get to be annoyingly smug about not ever having had FB accounts? YAY!

Can we be annoyingly smug about other things?

Is this the thread where we get to be annoyingly smug about not ever having had FB accounts?

No, this is the thread where we wonder how many pages of data Facebook has about non-users who got infected with tracking cookies or even non-cookie tracking.

The number one rule of the Internet: NEVER put anything on the Internet that you don't want people to see or that may one day come back to haunt you, because it's never really gone.

Imagine, if you will, what Google has on you. They index everything.Yeah, I know, you can deny their spider indexer, but if even a single bit of data is placed on somebody else's website without your permission it's kept forever somewhere.

People know only what I want them to know about me. That's why I don't put up pictures by the thousands of me drunk off my ass holding beer bottles with drunk duck-faced women. Of course, I don't drink anymore, but the principle holds.

It's a simple thing: use your head, don't act like a jackass or say stupid things, and you have nothing to worry about. Act the fool and think that you can get rid of the evidence later and you're in for a hell of a rude awakening, especially when you show up for a job interview and they lay your drunken internet history in your lap. Or worse, you're in the military and you get captured and your captors use your information against you (it happens).

If it finds Facebook to have been in the wrong, it can ask the company to mend its ways, and if the firm refuses, a court could then fine it up to 100,000 euros (S$146,706).

Woah!

They better straighten up & fly right or they may find themselves bankrupt!

Nuclear Pancake: Also, I use FB a lot. Lots of political stuff and I post a lot. I like the targeted ads.and offers for services and products that appeal to me. If I'm going to look at ads I'd rather see ads for beer and progressive politics then tampons and daycare services.

In the year 2011 you still see ads? Really?

If only there were a program that could help you with that...

And I've never purchased anything through a targeted ad, and I'm really glad I didn't.

Different strokes, I guess. but I digress.

I like to collect information the old fashioned way, using spybots and info-squitos.

There are two things to consider: 1) Certain elements of your personal information are on the Internet regardless of what you do, but you can severely restrict what is shown, and 2) It is true that if you don't want people to know about your crazy personal habits you should not discuss them online, but that doesn't stop those habits from appearing online.

I recently conducted an executive profile assessment of a CEO of a large global company. The company's security guys did a great job of "scrubbing" the Internet of much of his personal information such as physical home address, names of his wife and kids, etc., but they couldn't avoid anecdotal evidence that appeared in interviews. For example, his home address is not hosted in any public resource, but a reporter revealed his town in an article.

So, through trusts and other methods you can hide where you live, but you cannot eliminate evidence from others who reveal something about your life. If you connect enough dots, you can discover just about anything. Some of those dots, naturally, will not be on the Internet and will require you to do leg work. That's why I don't focus on just the obvious sources of information, but use comprehensive traffic analysis to find what I need. In the end, if your college roommate reveals your proclivity for drunken debauchery, it will be known.

There is hope, however. It is not nearly as easy to find this stuff. Google searches only scratch the surface. I don't know how much time and money a prospective employer is willing to spend to scour the dark web and other lesser well-known sources to find stuff about you. I suspect that most HR people will simply Google your name and read the first two or three pages of results. Of course, this doesn't apply to candidates for high positions or positions requiring security clearances, etc.

That whole "retrieving your data from Facebook" seems okay until you realize that you have to scan in your driver's license to prove to Fb that you are who you say you are.

Facebook really thinks people are this stupid.

/must be because they are