Legal thoughts on using noScript and other code-blocking devices.

Argument against: Services provided are funded in part by blockable code. Users are therefore discounting their “free” service without provider permission.

Argument for: Service is not really “free” per se. Users are automatically donating their personal information which is then monetized by the either the servicer directly or third-party partners not necessarily previously contracted with the user. In the case of facebook and other social media that travel with the user, this is whether you have an account, have agreed to share your information and agreed to let them track you.

Secondary thoughts:

Is Facebook’s policy of construction “shadow” profiles for users based on information provided through access to (from facebook’s point of view) “partners” otherwise known as websites you would normally be tracked at if you were a facebook user.

This only seems okay if facebook is the considered a parent company to what would then be subsidiary websites. Arguably this could be any site that recieves a majority of its funds from facebook’s purchasing of their collected personal information.

It kind of seems like a gang, now that i think about it, where the big mafia don requires that everyone that lives in his part of town be followed and watched to see what they’re doing. Just constantly watch them, and every vendor in the area would be required to tell who was in their store that day.

All well and fine if you’ve agreed to it, the vast invasion of privacy is your way of living essentially “tax free.”

But what about someone who lives outside of the Mafia don facebook’s domain who just drives in to come to a store they like that just happens to be in his territory. He still collects all the same information, but he never asked.

It’s facebook’s secret police.

Does noscript control how much I pay for facebook? Yes. But if I didn’t have it, I would just be paying everything all the time. For a service I almost never use. Heavy users don’t care if facebook tracks them, they’re fine being pimped out by the don, going to all the stores he suggests and buying whatever he tells them to. The rewards are there. But for someone who just wants to keep in touch?

Well, it went from legalese to waxing rhetoric. It’s what happens when you’re hanging with Mar