The tech company most likely to
morph into Big Brother has confirmed that, yep, it tracks users’ mouse
movements on the screen in an effort to collect more data about that
user, reports India Today.
Facebook made the admission in a 225-page document in which it answered
questions asked of it by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
The
company says it tracks mouse movements to help its algorithms
distinguish between humans and bots–but also to determine if the browser
window that has Facebook loaded is in the foreground or background of a
user’s screen. And it doesn’t end there. Facebook also admitted to other device metrics it records about users, India Today reports:
The social networking platform also admitted that it collects information about operating systems, hardware, software versions, battery levels, signal strength, available storage space, Bluetooth signals, file names and types, device Ids, browser and browser plugins (which is almost all of the information available on and about your device), from the users’ phones, TV and other connected devices.While this should surprise no one, it’s just more fodder for people who are increasingly asking themselves, Why am I still letting this company get so much information about me?
The company also admitted to collecting information about users’ reported gender, people users have removed from their friend list and every ad the user has ever clicked on.