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A few weeks ago, Facebook begun a revolutionary advertising system called Beacon, which would collect data about user’s purchases on outside websites and add them to their Facebook profiles, through the news feed/mini feed functions. The original goal for Beacon was, “to build a simple product to let people share information across sites with their friends”
(Facebook blog). The service would tell your friends what movie tickets you purchased on Fandango.com, for example, or which games you added to your queue on Gamefly. The idea struck some users, though, as a distinct invasion of privacy, and for others Beacon was literally the Grinch who stole Christmas. Reportedly, one man’s wife learned of the diamond ring he’d bought her for the holiday from his Facebook mini-feed.

Beacon was meant to be a key part of Facebook’s social advertising strategy, where social networking is a springboard for word-of-mouth advertising. Unfortunately, Beacon did not receive the accolades they expected. Instead, MoveOn.org, a civic action advocacy organization, became involved and accused Facebook of violating user privacy. Users formed a group on Facebook itself called “Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!”, which now has more than 75,000 members. It wouldn’t be surprising if litigators get involved at some point (emotional distress over spoiled gift surprises is a far more valid claim than many of the lawsuits our courts are forced to hear).

All this hoopla and backlash has forced Facebook to apologize and make amends by giving users the option of turning off Beacon. Here’s how to opt-out:

• Click the “Privacy” tab in the upper right hand corner on your Facebook page.
• Select “Edit Setting” under External Websites
• Check the box that says “Don’t allow any websites to send stories to my profile”.

While allowing users to turn off Beacon is a step in the right direction, some users are still critical of Facebook, with one blogger noting that the text “is a very light gray…on a white background. Specifically designed to blend in with the background, once again making it all that more difficult to get out of the damn thing.” For those who choose to opt-in, Facebook added pop-up windows to the system that force users to click “OK” before any action at a third-party website is posted to their profiles/mini-feeds. This allows users to cherry pick which actions they want friends to see and which actions they want to keep private.

Other industry watchdogs claim that turning off Beacon does not mean that Facebook is not still collecting data about your activities from outside websites; it just means that your friends don’t see that data in their news feeds. Those claims are expressly denied by Facebook: “If you select that you don’t want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won’t store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook” (Facebook blog). Those partners, by the way, are mostly keeping mum about the backlash. It’s also surprisingly difficult to find a complete list of which websites are participating, though this blog published a partial list.

It seems that social advertising is not what the public wants, even though it would be enormously beneficial to the advertisers who get a ready-made captive audience. This hiccough is not likely to be the death of systems like Beacon, though. The idea is too juicy to let it die, though I guarantee that similar initiatives will be far less transparent in the future. While “they” (in the Big Brother sense of the word) may have lost this round, our actions on the web will continue to be tracked, shared, and stored. The only question is, will other companies have the guts to admit privacy violations like Facebook did, or will they simply make their efforts invisible to users?

Sunday, December 16th, 2007 Both comments and pings are currently closed.

By Haley January Eckels