Facebook Patent to Track Users Even When They are Not Logged In to Facebook

Patent number 2,011,023,240:


Communicating Information in a Social Network System about Activities from Another Domain.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. The method includes maintaining a profile for each of one or more users of the social networking system, each profile identifying a connection to one or more other users of the social networking system and including information about the user. The method additionally includes receiving one or more communications from a third-party website having a different domain than the social network system, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking system on the thirdparty website. The method additionally includes logging the actions taken on the third-party website in the social networking system, each logged action including information about the action. The method further includes correlating the logged actions with one or more advertisements presented to the one or more users on the third-party website as well as correlating the logged actions with a user of the social networking system.

Facebook denies that this is a patent for that. Although Facebook does seem to track users even when they are not logged in, as well as people who aren't even Facebook users.

EDITED TO ADD (10/24); Facebook claims that, while they do collect information on non-users, they don't use it for profiling. This feels like hair-splitting to me; I get emails from Facebook with lists of friends who are already on the site.