Did you ever wonder how FaceBook could be free to you? Did you ever wonder how a company offering a free service to you could be worth billions of dollars (if not as many billions as Morgan Stanley conned investors into dumping into the I.P.O.; still billions)?

Well, it's because you are agreeing to give them all information of any kind that you submit to their website. And their tracking cookies tell FaceBook every other place you go on the Web, and even e-mail information. That information is for sale to the highest bidder. That's how it's "free."

Of course there's a lot of information to be had from your "likes." And you can bet that all sorts of people have access to it. That's why FaceBook still exists as a very profitable enterprise.

Only another reason I'm glad I closed my Facebook account months ago without regret!

I like it!

Is it really that impressive that they were able to guess whether a male was gay or not 88% of the time? I could guess "no" for everyone and still be right at least 90% or so of the time.

Can someone please tell me why it's "awesome" to link liking curly fries to IQ? Who cares?! And I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that "Drinking game aficionados were generally more outgoing than, say, fans of fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett." Sheesh!

Which is why I never like just random things, only things my friends have put on that have to do with them and my favorite sports team. That's it. Besides, who has time to troll through Facebook to try and decide who's gay? Keep your browsing private and your information restricted to only your friends and never accept friend requests from people you don't know (duh). I also do not click on any advertising links within Facebook. If I see something I want to look into further, I go directly to their website by typing it in, not linking from Facebook.

So throw them off, like everything, especially anything opposite from your real self,then hide everything that comes from them. Then your profile is basically useless, but the dopes you don't like will have to pay Facebook more. Win-Win. Bill G.

A key thing to remember is that when you're not shelling out cash or otherwise some sort of payment for something, you are no longer the consumer/customer, but instead the product. In the case of FB, you are the product they sell to their thousands of customers willing to buy the data. As long as you are comfortable with that, there's no reason to get excited. Surveys to "earn free stuff," entry forms for vacation giveaways, Facebook 'likes,' your "free" Gmail, Hotmail, YahooMail or whatever your preference may be.....it's all the same. I'd be willing to bet my StarTrib profile is data-mined for an advertiser or two.....oh well. At least the advertisements on the page often become more relevant to me instead of all the weight-loss/Cialis/stock tips spam I get in my email everyday!

And I'm pretty sure the strib website tracks every click you make back to facebook. Just pay attention to the applets on the bottom of your browser when you read an article. No wonder this damn rag is so slow all the time.

As for the mining, search for any product from any couple retailers, and the next day ads for that will show up on your search engine page, the strib, facebook, even though you used none of those particular pages for your search. Bill G.