Facebook tracking is under scrutiny

In recent weeks, Facebook has been wrangling with the Federal Trade Commission over whether the social media website is violating users' privacy by making public too much of their personal information. Far more quietly, another debate is brewing over a different side of online privacy: what Facebook is learning about those who visit its website.

Facebook officials are now acknowledging that the social media giant has been able to create a running log of the web pages that each of its 800 million or so members has visited during the previous 90 days. Facebook also keeps close track of where millions more non-members of the social network go on the Web, after they visit a Facebook web page for any reason. To do this, the company relies on tracking cookie technologies similar to the controversial systems used by Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Yahoo and others in the online advertising industry, says Arturo Bejar, Facebook's engineering director. Facebook's efforts to track the browsing habits of visitors to its site have made the company a player in the "Do Not Track" debate, which focuses on whether consumers should be able to prevent websites from tracking the consumers' online activity.