Facebook's About Face: Beacon Now Opt-In
Nov 30, 2007
Facebook announced that it's changing its Beacon advertising program from opt-out to opt-in, giving members more control over what info is shared with their friends. The reversal comes less than 10 days after MoveOn started a Facebook group, which grew to over 54,000 members, to protest Beacon as an invasion of privacy.
In a first for the social networking site, Facebook's Beacon tracks members' product reviews and purchases on 3rd party sites and shares that info with their friends via the news feed feature. Over 40 companies are currently participating in the ad program, including eBay, Blockbuster, Yelp, Hotwire and Overstock.com.
What isn't a first for Facebook is responding to feedback by users. As the Associated Press reports, last year the company faced a backlash when it introduced its news feed. It reacted by giving members the option of turning off the feature.
Tags:
advertising, Beacon, Facebook, privacy
