Proposal for a more-private Facebook “Like”

Published on Dec. 04, 2011
by Kyle

The Facebook “Like” button is a bit cruel. It tracks every site you go to and stores that information on their servers. They use that information to target you and your friends with advertising. To many, this is an un-ethical practice, but site owners have a reliance on it for generating traffic. The same sites you see writing about Facebook privacy concerns have the button attached to their article.

My proposal is that developers defer the loading of the “Like” button script by requiring a click event from the user first. I have created a project that is a quick-stab at allowing a site owner to leverage a Facebook Like button, while making the invasion more voluntary for the user, in this manner.

Facebook is receiving a lot of heat over the information they are storing, but as web developers we also do have some responsibility in the matter. Just because its the code Facebook gives you, doesn’t mean its the exact code that you have to use. While I admit, my quick-stab is a bit hack, and it only covers one style of implementation (the “button_counts” style), my hope is that site-creators will consider creating a solution that fits their needs and is kinder to the privacy of their audience.

What my implementation does…

Not much. All the script does is use a temporary image in the place of the Like button, clicking that image is a trigger to load the invasive facebook like button and swap them. If this was widely applied to sites it would change the information that Facebook has from being every site that a user visits, to being every site that user interacts with the Like button functionality on.

Like this article with the button below, to try it out!

I have set up a code repository for this extremely-slim example on github. Feel free to use it in any way you wish.