Facebook promises to fix tracking cookie issue

PEOPLE DATABASE Facebook has told a security hacker and blogger that it will fix the privacy issues that he exposed on his blog last weekend and told it about almost a year ago.

Yesterday we reported that Nik Cubrilovic had revealed how Facebook tracks users via cookies, even after they have logged out. Even though the firm told him, and us, that it only uses these cookies for good, and not for actually tracking users, it has promised to fix the issue.

Cubrilovic told the Australian newspaper that during a long telephone call Facebook promised him that it would change its system within 24 hours. Although it claimed that it presently does not use the information for identifying users it could in the future, and because of this Cubrilovic was pleased with the result.

"They're sending the information to their servers, even when they are (users) logged out. It's a question of what they do with it," he said. "They may not do with it now, but in two years' time, they might introduce a new feature that accesses it."

During the 40 minute phone call with Facebook engineers, Cubrilovic got a bigger picture from the company as well as the promise of a quick fix.

"They aim to fix it (the logout issue) by tomorrow," he added. "There will still be cookies, but they won't be identifiable. That's within 24 hours. We can only take them at their word."

Yes, we can. Yesterday the word was that there was no problem with the cookies. Today the official line has not changed, but the use of cookies has, or at least will soon. So, go figure. µ