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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Disqus isn't a site you visit directly, it is a plugin service which site owners can plug into their site.

As part of its functionality it relies on the ability to uniquely identify a user across sites (to provide user authentication).

There are quite a few other services that work in a similar way.

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Many people are logged into Disqus all the time. I would think that an explicit login overrides any DNT header.

On the other hand, if I'm not logged in, I don't want them tracking me across all the Disqus-enabled sites I visit.

"Many people are logged in to Facebook all the time. I would think that an explicit login overrides any DNT header."

As a user, I want to be stay logged in to Facebook when posting a TC comment. But I don't want Facebook to track me when I visit some random site with a like button. How do we draw the line here?

Pragmatically, we draw it with Adblock and NoScript and friends.

Suggested friend: Ghostery.

Is Ghostery useful if a person is already using a privacy list for AdBlock, such as EasyPrivacy[1] or Fanboy Tracking List[2]?

[1] https://easylist.adblockplus.org/en/

[2] https://secure.fanboy.co.nz/

Yes, it lets you more easily re-enable things on a case-by-case basis. Like NoScript, but focused on privacy.

A solution that I've found works well for me is simply disabling cookies, and whitelisting any site that I want to use that requires them, or that I am attempting to log in to.

This is made easier for me by the fact that I don't use Facebook.

I think Facebook and Disqus are different cases. The only reason anyone ever logs into Disqus is to be able to use it on third-party sites. Not so for Facebook. People's intentions matter.

I would say authentication isn't tracking... its authentication.

That's a play on words. You can authenticate yourself to something and then be tracked for other reasons.

If you don't want to be tracked, the site that handles authentication can still keep you logged in, but it isn't allowed to track your whereabouts.

In the case of facebook they can show the "like" button, but they cant use the information that it has been shown for you on a particular site, on a particular date/time.

Yeah, but that is kind of useless.

Facebook's entire purpose is to show you things you are interested in. The fact you didn't like something on a given site is nearly as useful as if you did.

Thats from an advertiser perspective, not from a user perspective.

Not at all.

Facebook show's me updates from my friends activity. It can better match those to my interests if it knows what I am interested in.

Good.

So Facebook & Google are fine, too then. You authenticate with them, then they add features based on that.

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