The Institute of Network Cultures has an interesting article on how social media track our every move, even when we are doing things on the web that are not related to our social activities. The title:

Antisocial Integrations: Inverting the Tracking Logic

More and more websites add buttons that exhort us to “like” (facebook) or “+1” (google) or to “tweet this”. But there is a dark side to these “social integrations”. They set cookies on your browser, whether you like it or not, and they are used to track on-line behavior and surfing habits, even those that we do not consciously connect with out social networking activities.

The major problem seems to be that most people are not aware of what is happening, they are not even aware that there may be a problem, or what the problem exactly is. And the problem is not even limited to social networking sites:

“3rd party advertising and tracking firms are ubiquitous on the modern web. When you visit a webpage, there’s a good chance that it contains tiny images or invisible JavaScript that exists for the sole purpose of tracking and recording your browsing habits. This sort of tracking is performed by many dozens of different firms.”

There are several browser extensions that can be used to block tracking in this way, but…

“These techniques to block unwanted tracking by social networking sites probably do a better job in raising awareness about the tracking practices than actually blocking the integrations on a large scale. What seems to be missing is a common understanding of the issue.”

Roosendaal does give us an idea of where to look. He describes two significant concepts in a paper of his: ‘informational self-determination’ and ‘contextual integrity’:

“(..) the individual should be able to decide which data are disclosed to whom and for what purpose. The aspect of contextual integrity means that data have to be treated according to the norms applicable to the context in which the data were disclosed. Besides, data should not be transferred to another context without the individual’s consent.”

The point of the Network Cultures article: Awareness needs to be raised on a broad basis that there is a problem, and what exactly the problem is. And the writer proposes to turn the tables on the trackers: “Let’s invert the tracking logic.”

more in the actual article here: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/unlikeus/2011/10/21/antisocial-integrations-inverting-the-tracking-logic/