Millions Of Facebook Users Shocked To Discover Their Every Move Is Not Being Tracked

Millions of users of the social networking site Facebook were shocked to discover this week that their every move is not being tracked.  While users of the site with a smartphone were told that hidden files had been secretly gathering location information on them for up to 12 months Facebook members who use a traditional PC or laptop device have apparently been left out in the technological cold.

Nigel Holden, 37, on-line diarist and beardy founder of the Track Me I’m Yours blog is just one of Facebook’s bitterly disappointed PC-based users.  He had this to say, “Frankly I’m pissed.  I mean there I am, night and day updating my status, posting pictures, tagging friends so that everyone knows what I’m up to, and now, just because I don’t have a “so-called” smartphone I’m not going to be able to let people constantly know where I am.  I mean how is a traditional PC user like me supposed to keep up?”

Many smartphone users on the other hand were delighted at the news that their handsets were continuously monitoring their movements.  Bianca French, 21, a student and model in Dublin was overjoyed by the discovery.  “I mean it’s just, like, fab, ya know, it like, oh my God, sooo random, cause, like I was just saying to Jess in Krystle last night, like, that I’m sooo over having to like check in everywhere on FB to let, like everyone know where you are and stuff, and like when you’ve got into Krystle cause the doorguy who looks just like Brian O Driscoll, like, nodded at you, but Cat and Leslie are stuck outside cause they wore Uggs to the pub like total plebs, but you’re, like in, so you check in on FB and they can’t and they’re like soooo jealous.  But it’s, like a total pain cause I’m so over checking in, but now, like my phone just tells everyone where I am, so that’s like soooooooo.... ya know?”

Apple and Google, the handset providers at the centre of the controversy have yet to make an official statement, safe in the knowledge that they will soon release something new and shiny and the furore will die down.  A spokesperson for Facebook, however told reporters today that “while the ability of many smartphones to record their users movements is a little creepy and worryingly Orwellian it’s not really going to make that much difference in a world where people post status updates from the toilet”.