Aleecia M. McDonald, "Following Social Advertising in the United States:"

• Users like Like, and disable privacy tools that break Like
• Users do not understand Like tracks them all over the web

How could a privacy-friendly Like button look like?

Like should simply store some link or thing in your profile as something you happen to like. If you want more than that, then you should also pubsub to a channel that does something on-topic (follow).

If it's a company product, the context might actually be run by the company. By subscribing to their context you opt-in for them to send you updates and advertisement. If you're not in, they can't SPAM you.

By default the software would generate a new identity for you to interact with them, but you can choose to use an existing one. Also, a pubsub channel can be configured in such a way that you can subscribe anonymously at any node in the multicast tree, and your secushare software would tell you when that is not the case. Therefore the company can reach out to you to let you know something, but, like with advertisement in a magazine or a television channel, they can't know exactly who you are. The nodes might give them feedback on the number of viewers, so they get a rough idea on how many are following them.