Facebook Wants To Track Your Cursor To Learn Even More About You

Facebook is preparing its infrastructure for a massive increase in collected user data.

Ken Rudin, Facebook's head of analytics, told the Wall Street Journal it is planning to test behavioral analytics software that keeps track of whether a newsfeed is visible on a user's mobile screen, or how long a cursor hovers over various parts of the site before clicking.

Behavioral data is increasingly being used across the web in the targeting of advertising and optimization of customer service. Zynga, where Rudin came from, was a star in this area. Facebook keeps and analyzes the activity it tracks on the site in real time, like friends, likes, and photo tags, separate from demographic user data, like where people live or went to school. For Facebook privacy hawks, however, the distinction may be lost.