I believe you have explained the mechanics of the system correctly.
As to who is doing the deception, I think you're right that (in the example we're discussing) cnn.com is being deceptive. That's a good point; I hadn't really considered the complicity of the partner sites.
But in the end, Facebook is producing widgets, building a system to receive data from those widgets, and working with their partners to deploy those widgets. This system of data transmission is in no way obvious to normal people; if I weren't a web developer, I'd just think I was seeing a "like button image," and that's it. That's the part that pisses me off-- I think it's sneaky, not just me complaining about something I originally agreed to.
Just out of curiosity, and assuming you actually have a Facebook account, this really doesn't bother you at all? Should it be obvious to me that buttons I'm not clicking may be transmitting data to other sites?
This may not be a realistic expectation now, but I think that as the general population becomes more technologically literate, for the average person, the presence of such a button should indicate "this website has some kind of relationship with facebook/reddit/google - if I care about what data they are sharing, I should probably check their privacy policy." And I think that 99% of people won't care. My admittedly idealistic belief is that the solution to this "controversy" is for everyone to recognize that we shouldn't try to apply pre-internet expectations and beliefs about privacy to the modern world.
That doesn't seem crazy to me as an expectation for the distant future. Right now, I'd estimate that 95% of Facebook users would be at least irritated if they knew the full extent of the data that Facebook collects. I wouldn't be surprised if that dropped down to 25% 50 years in the future (assuming some new Facebook-like entity that pulls similar bullshit then).
The good news for me is that I'll probably be dead by then, or at least most of my friends will be, so Facebook will be of no interest to me.
I'm curious about why you describe your belief as idealistic. Specifically, what is ideal, or even good, about Facebook logging a subset of my browsing history? I understand it's potentially profitable for them and their partners, but that's not a benefit to me.
My idealistic view, which is substantially in conflict with yours, I think, would be that Facebook just serve me targeted ads and forget about the rest of it. Why would your ideal future be better? (I'm assuming you don't work for Facebook or one of their partners.)
As to who is doing the deception, I think you're right that (in the example we're discussing) cnn.com is being deceptive. That's a good point; I hadn't really considered the complicity of the partner sites.
But in the end, Facebook is producing widgets, building a system to receive data from those widgets, and working with their partners to deploy those widgets. This system of data transmission is in no way obvious to normal people; if I weren't a web developer, I'd just think I was seeing a "like button image," and that's it. That's the part that pisses me off-- I think it's sneaky, not just me complaining about something I originally agreed to.
Just out of curiosity, and assuming you actually have a Facebook account, this really doesn't bother you at all? Should it be obvious to me that buttons I'm not clicking may be transmitting data to other sites?