Privoxy rule to block Facebook spying

Question

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.

What are like bugs? – Bart Silverstrim Sep 16 '10 at 11:15 — Bart Silverstrim, Sep 16 '10 at 11:15

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 31 '11 at 22:48

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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.

answered Jan 31 '11 at 22:48

Frost

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+1 for the update to the regex. I've incorporated that into the question for future reference. – bignose May 08 '11 at 01:48

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 17 '10 at 00:24

1

Sorted this out; the proxy was being silently ignored.

answered Sep 17 '10 at 00:24

bignose

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Privoxy rule to block Facebook spying

2 Answers2