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bignose
Asked: 2010-09-17 01:34:12 +0800 CST

Privoxy rule to block Facebook spying

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Recently, my server's Privoxy rules to block Facebook's spying have failed. How can I block current Facebook spying links?

Since soon after the inception of Facebook's so-called “Open Graph” cross-site tracking widgets (those “Like” bugs on numerous websites), I blocked them by using this rule (in user.action) on our site's Privoxy server:

{ +block-as-image{People-tracking button.} }
.facebook.com/(plugins|widgets)/(like|fan|activity).*

That worked fine; the spying bugs no longer appeared on any web page.

Today I noticed that they're all making it past that filter [edit: no, they're not].

SOLUTION: The proxy was being silently ignored, though this was not obvious in the client. The above rule continues to work fine.

malware privoxy

2 Answers

  1. I found this wasn't blocking a facebook window for me so I added "activity" in there with like and fan (ie, (like|fan) becomes (like|fan|activity). Not sure exactly what the activity bit is but hiding that php page made the Facebook annoyance and constant page reloads that occur after implementing this: http://bmearns.net/wwk/view/Privoxy

    FWIW to anyone.

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  2. Best Answer

    Sorted this out; the proxy was being silently ignored.

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