Consumer Tracking and How Facebook Exposed Us All as Freaks

Beacon and tracking regimes like it violate the unwritten soc-site covenant: They don't care who you think you are or who you'd like other people to think you are. They barely glance at your meticulously managed profile — Chabon on the nightstand, Beirut on the iPod, gut carefully sucked in. Instead, they tail you, dissecting you site by site, purchase by purchase: the gorilla mask, the bucket of chicken, the webcam, the subscription to Mature Biracial Pony, the edible sweatpants. Beacon was the wake-up call. Our cyberselves aren't neatly separated like a TV dinner; they're closer to a prison breakfast — everything in one bowl. Article in full here.