Is Facebook's Beacon Backfiring?
Nov 23, 2007
As you've probably heard by now, social networking site Facebook has come under fire this week because political action group MoveOn has decided to launch a petition -- and full-scale media blitz -- to protest the company's new advertising program.
Known as Facebook Beacon, the ad service includes a feature that tracks user purchases on certain third-party sites and then shares that information with people in the user's friends list as part of their news feed. Individuals can opt-out on a case-by-case basis, though critics think Facebook should either require users to opt-in, or allow them to opt-out altogether.
The folks at MoveOn describe the feature as an invasion of privacy and they're asking supporters to sign a petition that says: "Facebook must respect my privacy. They should not tell my friends what I buy on other sites--or let companies use my name to endorse their products--without my explicit permission."
The examples of those who say they've been caught off guard by Beacon range from the seemingly benign (e.g. one user bought movie tix online and an alert was sent to his Facebook friends telling them what he planned to see) to the obviously embarrassing (e.g. a guy claims that his friends were alerted when he purchased "enhancement" pills).
So far, about 13,200 out of over 55 million members have joined MoveOn's protest group and Facebook is standing by the statements of chief privacy officer Chris Kelly, who told The Wall Street Journal that the company has been transparent with users and that it welcomes feedback from those who have concerns. According to the Journal, Kelly acknowledged that the company could change its policies based on customer reactions but that so far he says reaction has been "fairly muted."
Note: Chris Kelly will be among the speakers participating in our Tech Policy Summit conference in March.
Tags:
advertising, Facebook, privacy
