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Questions about Facebook "like" buttons on cache pages.


wandering4cache

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First I thought, cool idea. Then I clicked it. Not sure I really am crazy about my full real name showing up on a cache page that I liked it. Who is able to see that? Just my Facebook friends or all Facebook people?

 

AND more importantly, how can I undo it to get my name off the page?

 

Thanks.

 

:(

Edited by wandering4cache
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This is a terrible feature and should be removed. Even though I am on both sites I dont want my information shared in between the two. I can only imagine un needed traffic being brought to caches that cant handle them. Or it takes the hide and make it out in the open.

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Don't forget while you can "like" a cache, it doesn't mean others can tell who you are. Facebook likes are separate from your geocaching ID, so while a cache owner can see that so and so liked their cache page, there's no info to indicate what geocaching username they use... unless of course you happened to put that info on your Facebook profile as well. :(

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I would quite like an option to remove the 'Like' option for my caches... I thought Groundspeak was always against simplistic cache ratings? 'Like' is about as simple a cache rating as it gets. I'd 'like' (geddit?!) to think the logs on my caches are better suited to demonstrating how much people enjoy (or don't enjoy :() my hides...

 

Surely the 'Like' button is a disincentive to write a decent log on decent caches? How long before we start seing 'TFTC+Like' logs? Intead of "I really liked this, thanks for making the effort......... etc" ?

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I suspect it will generate a load of useless information. Some will "like" anything they can find and the rest of us won't bother to "like "anything. I have a public bookmark of my favorite caches. To me, and I hope to the owners of those caches, that means something.

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Don't forget while you can "like" a cache, it doesn't mean others can tell who you are. Facebook likes are separate from your geocaching ID, so while a cache owner can see that so and so liked their cache page, there's no info to indicate what geocaching username they use... unless of course you happened to put that info on your Facebook profile as well. :(

Unless you're the only one to have found it. And it's certainly no problem to check dates to determine people's real name. People generally are going to hit the "like" button at the same time they log it.

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Don't forget while you can "like" a cache, it doesn't mean others can tell who you are. Facebook likes are separate from your geocaching ID, so while a cache owner can see that so and so liked their cache page, there's no info to indicate what geocaching username they use... unless of course you happened to put that info on your Facebook profile as well. :D

Unless you're the only one to have found it. And it's certainly no problem to check dates to determine people's real name. People generally are going to hit the "like" button at the same time they log it.

 

Yeah, it will take a little deducing but it won't prove to be difficult to connect names with geocaching IDs. :(

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If you're not friends with the person who liked it on facebook, you won't even know who clicked it.

 

-Raine

Please put "friends" in quotation marks when you refer to Facebook "friends." Sorry, but I haven't been in my 30's for some time now, and I find this whole social networking thing to be a waste of the interwebs, at the very least. Now... if you were to use MySpace instead... :( Edited by knowschad
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Given all that's been happening recently on Planet Facebook, I think it's pretty funny that anybody with a Facebook account would think that anything that Groundspeak could do would have any measurable impact on their already hopelessly-compromised privacy. It's like someone who weighs 500 pounds complaining that the vending machine is out of Diet Coke.

Edited by sTeamTraen
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Given all that's been happening recently on Planet Facebook, I think it's pretty funny that anybody with a Facebook account would think that anything that Groundspeak could do would have any measurable impact on their already hopelessly-compromised privacy. It's like someone who weighs 500 pounds complaining that the vending machine is out of Diet Coke.

 

Alfiegeorge likes this

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I totally agree with this and would really like an option to remove the pointless and simplistic Like option that is now forced on my cache pages.

 

The cache page, the logs and the location on the map are a much better way of deciding if a cache is for you than a silly Like button that is only used by the proportion of cachers who have a Facebook account.

 

I would quite like an option to remove the 'Like' option for my caches... I thought Groundspeak was always against simplistic cache ratings? 'Like' is about as simple a cache rating as it gets. I'd 'like' (geddit?!) to think the logs on my caches are better suited to demonstrating how much people enjoy (or don't enjoy :() my hides...
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Given all that's been happening recently on Planet Facebook, I think it's pretty funny that anybody with a Facebook account would think that anything that Groundspeak could do would have any measurable impact on their already hopelessly-compromised privacy. It's like someone who weighs 500 pounds complaining that the vending machine is out of Diet Coke.

 

And given all that's been reported about Facebook and its numerous privacy issues, it's disappointing that this is the mechanism Groundspeak has chosen to add to encourage simplistic "rating" of caches.

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Given all that's been happening recently on Planet Facebook, I think it's pretty funny that anybody with a Facebook account would think that anything that Groundspeak could do would have any measurable impact on their already hopelessly-compromised privacy. It's like someone who weighs 500 pounds complaining that the vending machine is out of Diet Coke.

 

When I am at facebook.com, I can choose to limit the amount of personal information that I divulge. With this new "Like" widget, Groundspeak is providing Facebook with personally-identifiable tracking information about what web pages I visit, with no opt-in on my part and no apparent opt-out option.

 

I'm sure that the Groundspeak lawyers will be able to quibble over whether they are violating the letter of their privacy policy (if they're just giving this information away to Facebook for free, they're not "selling" or "renting" it) but they are certainly violating the spirit of it:

 

<quote name="http://www.geocaching.com/login/default.aspx">

Disclosure

At GEOCACHING.COM, we will not sell or rent any personally identifiable information about you to any third party, ever. On occasion, we will aggregate personally identifiable information and may disclose such information in aggregate to third parties. However, in these situations, we will never disclose any information that could be used to personally identify you.

</quote>

 

Hopefully there will be an opt-in option for Facebook connectivity real soon now.

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Given all that's been happening recently on Planet Facebook, I think it's pretty funny that anybody with a Facebook account would think that anything that Groundspeak could do would have any measurable impact on their already hopelessly-compromised privacy. It's like someone who weighs 500 pounds complaining that the vending machine is out of Diet Coke.

Oh I wish there was a "Like" button for this post :laughing:

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And given all that's been reported about Facebook and its numerous privacy issues, it's disappointing that this is the mechanism Groundspeak has chosen to add to encourage simplistic "rating" of caches.

 

I sincerely hope that this is NOT the answer from GC.com to GCVote

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With this new "Like" widget, Groundspeak is providing Facebook with personally-identifiable tracking information about what web pages I visit, with no opt-in on my part and no apparent opt-out option.

Sorry, I must have missed the part where the cache page asked me for my Facebook username and password.

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With this new "Like" widget, Groundspeak is providing Facebook with personally-identifiable tracking information about what web pages I visit, with no opt-in on my part and no apparent opt-out option.

 

Pretty easy to opt out.

 

1) Make sure you disable sharing of information on Facebook with 3rd party sites in your privacy settings. Check your profile with http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/

 

2) If you're REALLY concerned, install / use a second browser. Log into Facebook with Internet Explorer but use Firefox for Geocaching.com. Your session and cookies should not be able to leap from one browser to another.

 

3) Try using incognito mode (Google Chrome) or Private Browsing (Firefox)

 

4) Be all end all solution - delete your Facebook account and get over your privacy concerns

4b) To really block the tracking, make sure you only access Geocaching.com via Tor.

4c) A tin foil hat is handy too. :laughing:

Edited by northernpenguin
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If you're not friends with the person who liked it on facebook, you won't even know who clicked it.

 

-Raine

Please put "friends" in quotation marks when you refer to Facebook "friends." Sorry, but I haven't been in my 30's for some time now, and I find this whole social networking thing to be a waste of the interwebs, at the very least. Now... if you were to use MySpace instead... :bad:

 

AZcachemeister liked this! :laughing:

 

My wife is 'on' Facebook. It seems people tend to become 'friends' just to increase their 'friends' count, with no intention of ever communicating with them. :)

 

Yes, there are numbers HOs everywhere! :bad:

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If you're not friends with the person who liked it on facebook, you won't even know who clicked it.

 

-Raine

Please put "friends" in quotation marks when you refer to Facebook "friends." Sorry, but I haven't been in my 30's for some time now, and I find this whole social networking thing to be a waste of the interwebs, at the very least. Now... if you were to use MySpace instead... :laughing:

 

 

myspace i far better than FB

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When I am at facebook.com, I can choose to limit the amount of personal information that I divulge.

facebook forces you to use your real name on your account, and by default everything on somebody's profile is public (at least to other people who have facebook accounts). yeah you can make your profile private, but that's not the default. everybody complaining about lack of privacy on facebook (as well as all the other "social networking" sites) is totally out of their mind, because by definition there is no such thing.

 

With this new "Like" widget, Groundspeak is providing Facebook with personally-identifiable tracking information about what web pages I visit, with no opt-in on my part and no apparent opt-out option.

no they don't. it's you who provides that information, by using your facebook account in the first place. i don't use one (because i don't have one), so facebook doesn't know anything about me.

 

it's not Groundspeak who has the personally identifiable information, therefore they can't give it away to anyone. it's facebook who has it.

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With this new "Like" widget, Groundspeak is providing Facebook with personally-identifiable tracking information about what web pages I visit, with no opt-in on my part and no apparent opt-out option.

Sorry, I must have missed the part where the cache page asked me for my Facebook username and password.

I'm sorry, I must have been wrong when I considered the fact that even not logged in to FB you are still connected to facebook by way of an inline frame on every active cache page.

 

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=ef5bfb18-cc25-4eee-98f9-f6c29e0c353a&layout=standard&show_faces=false&width=450&action=like&font&colorscheme=light&height=35" style="border: medium none; overflow: hidden; width: 100%; height: 70px;" allowtransparency="true" class="Spacing" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

So where is the opt-out option for touching the FB servers? I only want to when I want to, not every time I look at an active cache.

Edited by Vater_Araignee
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Can i turnoff the facebook option. I don't like and i don't want facebook.

I do use Facebook, and I still want an option to turn it off. Our corporate firewall blocks Facebook (which I have no problem with), so I get a big "Access Denied" where the Facebook stuff is on the cache page. Visual issue (nothing really breaks), it's annoying, I'll get over it.

 

However, this "integration" also turns every cache page hit I generate into a Facebook hit, in the eyes of the firewall logging & monitoring. So now it looks like I've spent half my lunch hour trying to look at Facebook. That I do not like.

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So where is the opt-out option for touching the FB servers? I only want to when I want to, not every time I look at an active cache.

where's the problem when you're not logged in? or do you also mind hitting the google servers every time you view a cache listing?

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So where is the opt-out option for touching the FB servers? I only want to when I want to, not every time I look at an active cache.

where's the problem when you're not logged in? or do you also mind hitting the google servers every time you view a cache listing?

The problem is that my corporate firewall pops up and says "hey, this guy's trying to go to Facebook and that's not allowed!" every time I load a cache page.
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So where is the opt-out option for touching the FB servers? I only want to when I want to, not every time I look at an active cache.

where's the problem when you're not logged in? or do you also mind hitting the google servers every time you view a cache listing?

Nope, because I'm not required to have a Google account to participate in basic Google services.

I'll also add the Google has never given me assumed ip location based advertisements.

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Pretty easy to opt out.

 

1) Make sure you disable sharing of information on Facebook with 3rd party sites in your privacy settings. Check your profile with http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/

 

2) If you're REALLY concerned, install / use a second browser. Log into Facebook with Internet Explorer but use Firefox for Geocaching.com. Your session and cookies should not be able to leap from one browser to another.

 

3) Try using incognito mode (Google Chrome) or Private Browsing (Firefox)

 

4) Be all end all solution - delete your Facebook account and get over your privacy concerns

4b) To really block the tracking, make sure you only access Geocaching.com via Tor.

4c) A tin foil hat is handy too. :laughing:

 

Thank you for the www.reclaimprivacy.org site.

Also, I went into my Facebook account hoping that they've added a delete option. Instead they have a "deactivate" option. My account remains and I can activate it anytime I want to. Here's the message I got:

 

You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.

 

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada had issues with Facebook and there were going to be some changes made. One of the privacy issues included "deactivation" vs. "deletion".

 

http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2009/nr-c_090827_e.cfm

 

2. Deactivation of Accounts

 

Issue: Facebook provides confusing information about the distinction between account deactivation – whereby personal information is held in digital storage – and deletion – whereby personal information is actually erased from Facebook servers. As well, Facebook should implement a retention policy under which the personal information of users who have deactivated their accounts will be deleted from the site’s servers after a reasonable length of time.

 

Response: Facebook has agreed to make it clear to users that they have the option of either deactivating their account or deleting their account. This distinction will be explained in Facebook’s privacy policy and users will receive a notice about the delete option during the deactivation process.

 

While we asked for a retention policy, we looked at the issue again and considered what Facebook was proposing. We determined the company’s approach – providing clarity about the options, offering a clear choice, and alleviating the confusion – is acceptable because it will allow users to make informed decisions about how their personal information is to be handled.

 

If I understand the above correctly, there's supposed to be a deletion option. But I don't see one. Am I missing something?

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Thank you for the www.reclaimprivacy.org site.

Also, I went into my Facebook account hoping that they've added a delete option. Instead they have a "deactivate" option. My account remains and I can activate it anytime I want to. Here's the message I got:

 

You have deactivated your Facebook account. You can reactivate your account at any time by logging into Facebook using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to.

 

If I understand the above correctly, there's supposed to be a deletion option. But I don't see one. Am I missing something?

 

Facebook buries the deletion option -- essentially you deactivate your account for two weeks (don't even look at it or the timer resets!), then it's deleted after two weeks:

 

Here's an article on Facebook that describes the process:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16929680703

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So where is the opt-out option for touching the FB servers? I only want to when I want to, not every time I look at an active cache.

where's the problem when you're not logged in? or do you also mind hitting the google servers every time you view a cache listing?

The problem is that my corporate firewall pops up and says "hey, this guy's trying to go to Facebook and that's not allowed!" every time I load a cache page.

 

I just noticed that too. Whoops! :laughing:

 

The day my corporate firewall blocks geocaching.com though is the day you'll hear about me on the news.

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Our corporate firewall blocks Facebook (which I have no problem with), so I get a big "Access Denied" where the Facebook stuff is on the cache page. Visual issue (nothing really breaks), it's annoying, I'll get over it.

 

However, this "integration" also turns every cache page hit I generate into a Facebook hit, in the eyes of the firewall logging & monitoring. So now it looks like I've spent half my lunch hour trying to look at Facebook. That I do not like.

 

I'm with you dakboy. You and I don't want to turn up on the firewall logging due to GC hitting facebook against our will.

 

Try this: Find your HOSTS file. On XP machines, it is in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc folder.

Edit the HOSTS file and add this line:

 

0.0.0.0 facebook.com

 

Save HOSTS, purge your browser cache, then have a look at cache pages again. Instead of the facebook hit to the firewall logging, your browser can't resolve facebook.com and will return a 'page not found' in that little space on the cache page.

 

Problem free lunch time GC browsing again. FTW!

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Hi!

 

If you're not friends with the person who liked it on facebook, you won't even know who clicked it.

 

-Raine

 

One question: What do you believe is the benefit of this new feature? Getting new members? I don't exactly see whom it is good for...

 

I more see that it might attract some/lots of kiddies that I personally don't want to see going for my caches at all.

 

So I chaged all my caches to be member only now as this should help getting rid of such newbies...

 

Bye,

Christian

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One question: What do you believe is the benefit of this new feature? Getting new members? I don't exactly see whom it is good for...

 

 

How about showing what caches people like in an area. Go on into the Canada forums and half the threads are "what caches should I visit if I'm visiting _________?" Perhaps this is an effort to provide a better search tool eventually.

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The problem is that my corporate firewall pops up and says "hey, this guy's trying to go to Facebook and that's not allowed!" every time I load a cache page.

yeah, and the people running the firewall will have to know that 3rd party sites can have embedded facebook frames and will therefore have to distinguish between this and that. if they don't, then that's their problem. in any case, corporate firewall policies sure as hell aren't GS's concern.

 

Nope, because I'm not required to have a Google account to participate in basic Google services.

I'll also add the Google has never given me assumed ip location based advertisements.

no? you're in the US, i guess you just don't notice that. travel elsewhere and you'll suddenly see different ads. guess how they determine which ads to show?

 

and this is facebook service. there's two options: don't use it, don't be logged in, and don't be tracked. or use it, which requires your facebook account, and be tracked. this is just how facebook works, everything on it. if you don't like it, don't use it.

 

yeah, you can't use the new button if you don't have a facebook account or don't want to use it. that's what makes it useless to a certain part of the users. but don't come crying about privacy issues, because there aren't any: if you don't use facebook and aren't logged in, then they don't know who you are and thus can't track you. if you do use facebook and are logged in, then you have no privacy anyway.

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Hi!

 

 

One question: What do you believe is the benefit of this new feature? Getting new members? I don't exactly see whom it is good for...

 

 

How about showing what caches people like in an area. Go on into the Canada forums and half the threads are "what caches should I visit if I'm visiting _________?" Perhaps this is an effort to provide a better search tool eventually.

 

O.k., but why should I go to Facebook that for? And is there one page that I can use to get this information? As I am absolutely not willing to use FB at all I don't know that.

 

I would expect such a feature on the geocaching.com website and not at Facebook!

 

Additionally I don't believe that this is really working at all! The US guys seem to like only traditionals being car accessible so these might get highest ranksings. But are they really good and worth to visit?

 

Sorry but for me this only looks like being a new way of acquiring new customers/members via Facebook.

 

If I want to visit another area I first read the forum threads regarding this area. All available via gc.com :-)

 

Bye,

Christian

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O.k., but why should I go to Facebook that for? And is there one page that I can use to get this information? As I am absolutely not willing to use FB at all I don't know that.

 

I would expect such a feature on the geocaching.com website and not at Facebook!

what the majority of facebook users don't understand is that not everybody has a facebook account. and those who don't have one usually have very good reasons for not having one, and will thus never create one.

 

so yeah, this button is a nice gimmick for those people who do use facebook, but for everyone else it's more than (or is that "less than"?) useless.

Edited by dfx
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Hi!

 

 

One question: What do you believe is the benefit of this new feature? Getting new members? I don't exactly see whom it is good for...

 

 

How about showing what caches people like in an area. Go on into the Canada forums and half the threads are "what caches should I visit if I'm visiting _________?" Perhaps this is an effort to provide a better search tool eventually.

 

O.k., but why should I go to Facebook that for? And is there one page that I can use to get this information? As I am absolutely not willing to use FB at all I don't know that.

 

I would expect such a feature on the geocaching.com website and not at Facebook!

 

Additionally I don't believe that this is really working at all! The US guys seem to like only traditionals being car accessible so these might get highest ranksings. But are they really good and worth to visit?

 

 

Some people use PQs, some people print out cache pages. Some people stumble through the woods until they happen to see a cache container out of the blue.

 

It's a tool - don't like it? Don't use it.

Why build it on Facebook? Let's see there is an infrastructure sitting there ready to be used with prolly an hour of coding time. Get it out the door, make it pretty later.

 

I can use the same argument all over the place. Why do we allow players to contact each other via third party email systems? Surely the sysadmins at Comcast can read your emails if they desire! Because it is a convenience. Facebook is a convenient way to share information about caches.

 

I just used Facebook to organize 23 people for a canoe caching expedition. It turned out fantastic and we all had fun. There is a monthly geocaching club around here that uses Facebook to organize. I'll bet the cache target areas get at least influenced by the geocachers in this area 'liking' certain caches. If not, big whoop.

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Hi!

 

 

One question: What do you believe is the benefit of this new feature? Getting new members? I don't exactly see whom it is good for...

 

 

How about showing what caches people like in an area. Go on into the Canada forums and half the threads are "what caches should I visit if I'm visiting _________?" Perhaps this is an effort to provide a better search tool eventually.

 

O.k., but why should I go to Facebook that for? And is there one page that I can use to get this information? As I am absolutely not willing to use FB at all I don't know that.

 

I would expect such a feature on the geocaching.com website and not at Facebook!

 

Additionally I don't believe that this is really working at all! The US guys seem to like only traditionals being car accessible so these might get highest ranksings. But are they really good and worth to visit?

 

 

Some people use PQs, some people print out cache pages. Some people stumble through the woods until they happen to see a cache container out of the blue.

 

It's a tool - don't like it? Don't use it.

Why build it on Facebook? Let's see there is an infrastructure sitting there ready to be used with prolly an hour of coding time. Get it out the door, make it pretty later.

 

I can use the same argument all over the place. Why do we allow players to contact each other via third party email systems? Surely the sysadmins at Comcast can read your emails if they desire! Because it is a convenience. Facebook is a convenient way to share information about caches.

 

I just used Facebook to organize 23 people for a canoe caching expedition. It turned out fantastic and we all had fun. There is a monthly geocaching club around here that uses Facebook to organize. I'll bet the cache target areas get at least influenced by the geocachers in this area 'liking' certain caches. If not, big whoop.

 

I don't think most people mind using Facebook via Geocaching.com as a tool to connect with other Facebookers but to use it as the answer to a rating system....well that's just a major letdown and really bothers me that if I want to use this rating system I must use Facebook.

 

I wish Groundspeak would relieve some anxiety (or perhaps confirm the anxiety) and respond in the forums to let us know if this is their answer to the rating system request that has been asked for for at least the past 6 years.

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Hi!

 

Some people use PQs, some people print out cache pages. Some people stumble through the woods until they happen to see a cache container out of the blue.

 

It's a tool - don't like it? Don't use it.

Why build it on Facebook? Let's see there is an infrastructure sitting there ready to be used with prolly an hour of coding time. Get it out the door, make it pretty later.

 

I can use the same argument all over the place. Why do we allow players to contact each other via third party email systems? Surely the sysadmins at Comcast can read your emails if they desire! Because it is a convenience. Facebook is a convenient way to share information about caches.

 

I just used Facebook to organize 23 people for a canoe caching expedition. It turned out fantastic and we all had fun. There is a monthly geocaching club around here that uses Facebook to organize. I'll bet the cache target areas get at least influenced by the geocachers in this area 'liking' certain caches. If not, big whoop.

 

I guess that I wasn't exactly able to let you see the point:

 

I want to have at least a little bit of control who is able to see my caches. And with this "like" feature as I understand it closeto every Facebook user might be pointed to my caches if omeone likes them. And I definitely don't want that at all!

 

It's not about ME using FB or not (and I will also definitely not use FB!). It's about giving others the ability to make ads for my caches at a non caching related site with too many stupid people on it.

 

So what I did now is converting all my caches to member only and I wil fight for an option to set FB on/off for MY caches from now on until it's finally there.

 

I don't care if others want to have this FB link. If so, fine. But I want to decide by myself!

 

Bye,

Christian

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The problem is that my corporate firewall pops up and says "hey, this guy's trying to go to Facebook and that's not allowed!" every time I load a cache page.

yeah, and the people running the firewall will have to know that 3rd party sites can have embedded facebook frames and will therefore have to distinguish between this and that. if they don't, then that's their problem. in any case, corporate firewall policies sure as hell aren't GS's concern.

 

Nope, because I'm not required to have a Google account to participate in basic Google services.

I'll also add the Google has never given me assumed ip location based advertisements.

no? you're in the US, i guess you just don't notice that. travel elsewhere and you'll suddenly see different ads. guess how they determine which ads to show?

 

and this is facebook service. there's two options: don't use it, don't be logged in, and don't be tracked. or use it, which requires your facebook account, and be tracked. this is just how facebook works, everything on it. if you don't like it, don't use it.

 

yeah, you can't use the new button if you don't have a facebook account or don't want to use it. that's what makes it useless to a certain part of the users. but don't come crying about privacy issues, because there aren't any: if you don't use facebook and aren't logged in, then they don't know who you are and thus can't track you. if you do use facebook and are logged in, then you have no privacy anyway.

Don't know how it is working for you but with google I get adverts from all over the world. I just naturally assume the only thing they are using to target is language. So far I haven't gotten a single advertisement in English when I type in Fleischfressende Pflanzen, but I got German dealers (when they payed for adds) and if I type in Carnivorous Plants, then I get U.S., Canadian, British, and even Chinese dealers.

 

And your deluding yourself if you think that Facebook isn't keeping a database for every hit they get and what region it theoretically comes from. Maybe privacy isn't the cleanest word to use but it is still in part correct. How about forcing support? Now every person that views one ore more of the 1,089,017 active caches is now forced to help generate revenue for FB.

Bring a lackey out saying "FB is paying Groundspeak and that is being directing towards site improvement." and watch how many people say "OK" and promptly shut up.

 

No matter how you look at it, choice we have nativity implemented is to stop using a site we want to use or be forced to hit a site that provides nothing to the activity.

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It's not about ME using FB or not (and I will also definitely not use FB!). It's about giving others the ability to make ads for my caches at a non caching related site with too many stupid people on it.

 

So what I did now is converting all my caches to member only and I wil fight for an option to set FB on/off for MY caches from now on until it's finally there.

 

I don't care if others want to have this FB link. If so, fine. But I want to decide by myself!

 

 

You're going to want to start beating down Google's door then too. Cache pages are listed in the Google Index which has nothing to do with geocaching. If I google something like "Spring Fling in Ontario" the third result I get in Google is a local Mega Event - GC1MGE2 COG Spring Fling 6. Since you don't control robots.txt for Geocaching.com you're at risk of having someone find your cache via the Google index.

 

Why is having a website point a hyperlink at your cache such a problem. They're not copying the listing over to Facebook, they are providing the URL to Facebook. If you don't want people discovering your Geocache URL unless they sign up, perhaps you would be better served by a members only SITE like Terracaching.

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Don't know how it is working for you but with google I get adverts from all over the world. I just naturally assume the only thing they are using to target is language. So far I haven't gotten a single advertisement in English when I type in Fleischfressende Pflanzen, but I got German dealers (when they payed for adds) and if I type in Carnivorous Plants, then I get U.S., Canadian, British, and even Chinese dealers.

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/a...p;answer=113246

 

google probably has one of the best geolocation databases out there. advertisers have the choice whether they want to restrict their ads locally or not. for some of them it makes sense not to do that: online stores which ship internationally for example, or if your keywords are in a local language anyway, which is why you see what you see. adsense ads are different, those are more likely to have local restrictions (and this is also what i was talking about originally).

 

And your deluding yourself if you think that Facebook isn't keeping a database for every hit they get and what region it theoretically comes from.

i never said that they didn't. maybe they do, i don't know, and i really don't care. my point was that google probably does the same, but you don't seem to have a problem with them doing that.

 

How about forcing support? Now every person that views one ore more of the 1,089,017 active caches is now forced to help generate revenue for FB.

huh? how does that bring revenue to FB? if anything, it costs them money, as it causes bandwidth. they don't show ads, and they're not likely to get many new users through it. they get information about traffic on a 3rd party website, but how does that help them? (other than when they know who's causing the traffic, i.e. facebook users - but those are in the game already anyway)

 

No matter how you look at it, choice we have nativity implemented is to stop using a site we want to use or be forced to hit a site that provides nothing to the activity.

i still don't see the problem of hitting facebook when you're not a user or not logged in. see above, it's not different than hitting the google servers.

 

but i agree that there's one difference, it doesn't provide any benefit for non-users, unlike the google maps, which is why i also don't "like" it. lots of other features on the page also don't have any benefit to me, but yeah, i don't have those on every page. i still don't get the privacy concern though. tons of other websites have the same kind of buttons from 3rd party websites, be it facebook, twitter, digg, delicious and whatever else they have. do you also not use those websites?

 

Why is having a website point a hyperlink at your cache such a problem. They're not copying the listing over to Facebook, they are providing the URL to Facebook.

well, it's more than that. it's not just a link, it's an iframe. loading the page automatically loads the content from the iframe as well, which comes directly from the FB servers. loading this content also sends the current page's URL to the FB server, meaning they know what you're looking at. if you're logged in, they know it's you, otherwise they only see your IP address. all that without you doing anything.

 

i don't see the big deal though. it's not like they can do much with that information. like i said, google gets the same kind of information, and nobody seems to have a problem with them doing that.

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