Whether you have ever been to Facebook.com or not, Facebook is receiving information about your activities from 40+ of their partners' web sites.

If you do use Facebook and have opted out of their Beacon feature -- Facebook is still receiving information about your activities from 40+ of their partners' web sites.

How to block Facebook.com from receiving information about your purchases, movie rentals, etc.

Option A.) You do not use Facebook, and would like to block all traffic to their site.

Option B.) You want to use Facebook, but block the Beacon feature.

You entrust personal information to a company that acts like an immature child. You want to use Facebook, but block the Beacon feature which just goes too far in invading your privacy, benefits you and your friends little or not at all while benefiting Facebook's shareholders.

Option A.) You do not use Facebook, and would like to block all traffic to their site.

Windows users, start with the Start menu:

Start --> Run

If your Operating System is Windows XP or Windows Vista type:

notepad C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If your Operating System is Windows 2000 type:

notepad C:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If your Operating System is Windows 98 or Windows ME type:

notepad C:\WINDOWS\hosts

(Linux users, the hosts file us usually located at: /etc/hosts)

Add these two lines to the hosts file:

127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

Save the file: File -->Save (or CTRL-S)

Client security software may warn you that modifying the hosts file looks suspicious, this is you performing the modification, therefore it is safe to allow.