The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing to investigate Facebook’s practice of tracking users’ activity even after they have logged out of their accounts.
“No company should track customers without their knowledge or consent, especially a company with 800 million users and a trove of unique personal data on its users,” Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va.,said in a faxed statement Wednesday. “If Facebook or any other company is falsely leading people to believe that they can log out of the site and not be tracked, that is alarming.”
Facebook has acknowledged that certain applications continue to track users with cookies after they have logged out of their Facebook account, which has raised concerns of privacy advocates. The company, which said it will appear at the hearings, has maintained that the practice is outlined in its privacy policies.
“Senate to hold hearing on Facebook tracking cookies…<but insider trading. God forbid they look into that,” @itsm_guy tweeted.
Facebook has said the tracking of cookies are used to protect users, and to track spammers on the 800-million member social network. The company does not sell the information to third parties.
“Facebook tracks your every move you make on the net thru its cookies. Google saves every single search you do. And y’all worried now?” @Quietstorm516 added in a Twitter post.
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