Can we opt-out from showing up on Facebook's top-right realtime thing?

From what I’ve heard, you can opt out of individual posts showing up. I’m not sure if you can opt out of the ticker completely. Like many things about FB, it is unclear, imposed and poorly managed. I have read that there is a free Chrome extension that will allow you hide the ticker on your page, but I would imagine you would still show up on others. Yet another reason I am considering canceling my account.

Apparently, some people have taken to posting the following statement on their walls:
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“Please do me a favor and move your mouse over my name here, wait for the box to load and then move your mouse over the “Subscribe” link. Then scroll down and uncheck the “Comments and Likes”. I would really rather that my comments on friends and families posts not be made public, thank You! Then re-post this if you don’t want your every single move posted on the right side in the “Ticker Box” for everyone to see”
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If taken at face value, this would mean that I hope all 150+ of my Facebook friends would actually do this… and in fairness, I should also do the same for each and every one of them.

The only real alternative right now would seem to be switching to Google+ full-time. Meh.

You know what? I don’t even read what’s going by on that ticker anyway.

@robmandu That sounds so ridiculously cumbersome.

I am on Google+ and like it much better. I just wish more people would move over.

Cumbersome, yes…

I don’t quite understand the outrage. It’s all information that is easily visible when we visit any individual’s profile page. Commenting on others’ posts, being tagged in photos, it’s all public (to our friends, at least) information we’ve already elected to share – and that we can select visibility on at post time. The new ticker just puts it all in one place… where it flies by so fast chances of it actually being seen are slim.

Now, I’ve heard some rumor that Facebook might add ticker updates for when we visit unrelated web sites (since they can track that with the ubiquitous Share on Facebook links that are nigh everywhere). If so, then I do expect a right and just outrage, as that is information we’ve explicitly not chosen to share with everyone.

I think they are ultimaley looking to “data-mine” for monetization all of our activity on the web and ultimately make themselves a closed wall portal. Apparently, Spotify now makes you have an FB account in order to be a member and Netflix streaming will go through FB, although I’m not sure if exclusively. It’s all very Big Brotherish to me.

Am I the only person who still does not have this new feature? I still have no scrolling news feed thing.

@tom_g I don’t have it either; I’ve just read about it.

Remember, you are NOT Facebook’s customer. You (and your information) are Facebook’s product that they sell to advertisers.

Anytime you’re using a service that is free to you – Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Flickr, etc. – then this is likely true.

From a friend:

Just wait, Jen. Lisa (her partner) works with someone who actually attended the Facebook conference last week. He told her the new changes that are being rolled out stunning (as a techie, he was thrilled) and will change the face of social media. Apparently, it will start incorporating every page you visit, every song you play on Pandora, everything you like or share. Everything.

@Jude, you can signup for their new look-and-feel here: https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline.

@Jude That is exactly what I’m reading too and I hate the idea!

relevant: Today’s Joy of Tech comic: Zuckerberg sings Every Breath You Take.

also relevant: If you think Facebook and Google are all up in your privacy, just look at what new Amazon Kindle Fire users get to enjoy with its new Silk web browser technology:
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...what this means is that Amazon will capture and control every Web transaction performed by Fire users. Every page they see, every link they follow, every click they make, every ad they see is going to be intermediated by one of the largest server farms on the planet. People who cringe at the data-mining implications of the Facebook Timeline ought to be just floored by the magnitude of Amazon’s opportunity here. Amazon now has what every storefront lusts for: the knowledge of what other stores your customers are shopping in and what prices they’re being offered there. What’s more, Amazon is getting this not by expensive, proactive scraping the Web, like Google has to do; they’re getting it passively by offering a simple caching service, and letting Fire users do the hard work of crawling the Web. In essence the Fire user base is Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, scraping the Web for free and providing Amazon with the most valuable cache of user behavior in existence.
—Chris Espinoza

@robmandu Whoah – that is interesting! No wonder they are selling it so cheaply.

The Opera web browser for mobile phones has essentially operated this same way for years. For an older Blackberry or basic feature phone, this made more sense… even though the privacy concerns were still there.

While Amazon’s Kindle Fire isn’t going to set any performance records based on its hardware specs, it’s far more powerful and capable than a basic feature phone. “Faster” web browsing in this case is a ploy… Amazon wants personal info and browsing so they can intercept your purchases and make competing offers.

Robmandu… Because when I ‘like’ a picture of a half-naked girl (or guy) friend, I don’t need my mom and uncle seeing it. Likewise if I write a political comment on news post. These are things that people can’t see just by going to one’s wall. And this is quite different from impersonal companies having my information. Please understand the issue before you engage in apologetics for it.