• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    22 days ago

    Aren’t cookies already limited to the site at which they were created??

    What the fuck? You mean to tell me sites have been sharing cookies?

    I thought all browsers only delivered cookies back to the same site.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      22 days ago

      The problem is that a website is generally not served from one domain.

      Put a Facebook like button on your website, it’s loaded directly from Facebook servers. Now they can put a cookie on your computer with an identifier.

      Now every site you visit with a Facebook like button, they know it was you. They can watch you as you move around the web.

      Google does this at a larger scale. Every site with Google ads on it. Every site using Google analytics. Every site that embeds a Google map. They can stick a cookie in and know you were there.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
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          22 days ago

          Yes, it’s the reason for the tracking. To sell more targeted ads.

          If you’re up for reading some shennanigans, check out the book Mindf*ck. It’s about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, written by a whistleblower, and details election manipulation using data collected from Facebook and other public or purchased data.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
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          22 days ago

          It doesn’t have to be. Your browser sends the cookies for a domain with every request to that domain. So you have a website example.com, that embeds a Facebook like button from Facebook.com.

          When your browser downloads the page, it requests the different pieces of the page. It requests the main page from example.com, your browser sends any example.com cookies with the request.

          Your browser needs the javascript, it sends the cookie in the request to get the JavaScript file. It needs the like button, it sends a request off to Facebook.com and sends the Facebook.com cookies with it.

          Note that the request to example.com doesn’t send the cookies for Facebook.com, and the request to Facebook.com doesn’t send the cookie for example.com to Facebook. However, it does tell Facebook.com that the request for the like button came from example.com.

          Facebook puts an identifier in the cookie, and any request to Facebook sends that cookie and the site it was loaded on.

          So you log in to Facebook, it puts an identifier in your cookies. Now whenever you go to other sites with a Facebook like button (or the Facebook analytics stuff), Facebook links that with your profile.

          Not logged in? Facebook sets an identifier to track you anyway, and links it up when you make an account or log in.

    • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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      21 days ago

      I know Facebook and Reddit are in cahoots.

      I went to visit Reddit a couple weeks back to read the Deadpool & Wolverine comments, but used the wrong container tab and now Facebook feeds me endless Marvel related stuff.

      A lot of it is culture war bullshit too. Hmmmmm 🤔

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        21 days ago

        No, you don’t know anything. Just because you have a suspicion because something happened to you once doesn’t mean you are sure in any way.

        • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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          21 days ago

          Nah I’m sure.

          I never once saw a post about Marvel fed to me by Facebook and now it’s constant

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            21 days ago

            Did it start after the extremely popular marvel movie “Deadpool and Wolverine” released?

            • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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              21 days ago

              Lol that’s your argument for why you think they don’t know what they’re talking about? Because all you did is make yourself seem like you have no idea how cookies work 🤣

            • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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              21 days ago

              Before. “Couple weeks” is more like 5 months at this point now that I think about it.

              I don’t mind some of it much, but the obvious culture-war bait is infuriating.

              It’s not because the movie just came out. I’ve been diligent about keeping Facebook and Reddit in their container tabs for years. It’s just Marvel stuff, not just the movies. Marvel’s been putting out huge movies for years and this hasn’t happened around any of their other releases.