I don't think that'd really be true, since they'd just have it stored in the background without you having a FB account (and wouldn't have the ability to see how bad it is)

not saying that's worth having an account though.

does that stop facebook from collecting data about you? I didn't think it did, and because you don't have an account it's not, or at least wasn't possible to control any privacy settings.

Technically, no. Legally, it means you haven't accepted their terms of service, so if/when (I hope) the political privacy landscape changes, it'll be more likely that you can sue, report a violation, request deletion, (or maybe they'd even preemptively delete it to cover their tracks / come into compliance with new laws).

That's an interesting thought. I've removed (deleted?) my Facebook account several months ago. Maybe I should have kept it around in order to manage it.

which I did a couple of years ago. Now I have no idea what they know about me. I use adblock and friends, but I wonder how much data about me they still manage to gather

When I view this link, I can see no activity.

Here is my secret: I deleted my facebook account several years ago. (before it was cool)

I love how links like this are (successfully?) attempting to pull people back in.

Fair point!