Daily Marauder

FACEBOOK BEACON: YOU JUST GOT PWNED

Welcome to Facebook Beacon, one of Facebook’s many new business solutions for advertisers. Facebook Beacon allows viral distribution of activity on advertisers’ web sites through the Facebook social network.

Great for advertisers.

A bit weird for the rest of us.

As an example, let’s say that I decide to add Caligula to my favorites list on Blockbuster. Now, while I wouldn’t mind my closest friends to see this event, it might initiate a few awkward moments with the co-workers. Or for example, let’s just say you purchased your Christmas presents for your wife online and those items were then posted to your Facebook News Feed for your wife to see. Awesome.

Last week, MoveOn.org joined the amalgamation of complaints mounting against this new service by issuing a petition in Facebook, ironically. MoveOn regards Beacon as a violation of user privacy as Facebook users cannot universally opt out of all Beacon messages. Click on the image below to join MoveOn’s petition.

In response, Facebook issued a response last Monday in the form of an e-mailed statement. “Facebook is listening to feedback from its users and committed to evolving Beacon so users have even more control over the actions shared from participating sites with their friends on Facebook,” the statement read. “Facebook already has made changes to ensure that no information is shared unless a user receives notifications both on a participating website and on Facebook.”

Here’s something which may change your mind: Facebook currently allows you to opt out of these notifications. While on participating sites, users can choose to opt out of notifications posted on Facebook’s News Feed. See below.

In addition, users can also choose to opt out of all notifications from a participating web site. For instance, a user that buys Wedding Crashers from Blockbuster can stop a story from being published about it, or she can opt-out of having Blockbuster publish any actions she takes on the Blockbuster site.

That said, Facebook decided not to move forward with allowing users to opt out of all third-party web site notifications. See the image of early screenshots of Beacon below as posted on Techcrunch 11/2. http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/02/ok-heres-at-least-part-of-what-facebook-is-announcing-on-tuesday/

Here’s a suggestion. If the global privacy setting nullifies the interest on the part of the advertisers, turn the opt out into an opt in. This would surely mitigate the anger of pissed-off Facebook users. Then I can choose to be a broadcaster of all of my transactional history when I so desire. You dig?

Activist group MoveOn.org joined the cacophony of complaints against Facebook’s new Beacon product recommendation system voicing concerns about user privacy. The main beef continues to be that Facebook users must “opt out” of the program in order to prevent their information from being shared, rather than making interested parties “opt in” to activate it. As of last night over 20,000 Facebook members had joined the group. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071121/ap_on_hi_te/facebook_ads 11/21)