Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking
Nrbelex writes "Facebook is reining in some aspects of a controversial new advertising program, after users became extremely upset and threatened various 'protests' over possible privacy infringement issues. 'Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users' Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time ... Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages.'"
But too late for me...I already deleted my Facebook profile when they launched this abominable feature.
I don't know about anyone else, but I leave a sparse (read as minimal info) Facebook page up simply to act as another way a person can get in touch with me (I have it set to e-mail me if I get a message).
Facebook Executives wrote: Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages.
What they meant: "We're turning it off for now, but we're going to slowly and deliberately swing it back to an on by default system."
As far as the claim that the complainants are a "marginal minority", I think that it's only a "marginal minority" of Facebook users that even knew the system existed, and probably a smaller minority that had any personal experience with it.
"With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages."
Translation: We're not sorry, and in a week we think that everyone will have forgotten about the privacy issues, just like the news feed.
I'm seriously considering closing my Facebook. Free service hemorraging privacy by the day = Mistake. Facebook is definitely past its prime.
Another poster (when the Beacon article was on Slashdot previously) said that the facebook belief was that "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission". Definitely the case here...
Host my own site? That would imply I'm like, proactive or something.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Well, I'll give Facebook points for once again responding fairly quickly and positively to complaints from their user base. In an age when most corporations treat customers as an irritation rather than a valued client this seems like a good thing.
Hopefully Facebook's example will be noticed by other companies and sites, who will learn to back down when they have done something stupid or unpopular.
Facebook's exec is right though - the vast majority of users just don't care, and likely quite a few of them would have liked having their name and picture popping up all over the place. Facebook could have gone ahead with Beacon quite successfully, but dropped it nonetheless.
Let's give credit where credit is due.
Three Squirrels
Facebook is for the masses. I suspect that most /.ers are tech-savvy enough to have no desire to have anything to do with it. I could be wrong. If I want a presence on the Internet, I'll build my own site, maintain it, control its content, and make damned sure the information isn't being abused to the best of my ability. Call it tin-hat paranoia if you like, but I can't unequivocally trust any web application/service, though I've started to use Gmail and the new on-line service Sandy to a limited extent. But I continue to watch my Net footprint to make sure it doesn't get too large. Facebook is nothing I want to have anything to do with -- I think that most users don't even understand the context of the problem, let alone just what they are being exposed to, so in that way the owners are right. It's only the techie-geek minority that see this for what it is: an invasion of privacy.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Facebook, unfortunately, appears to have been extremely calculated and crafty in its decisions to roll out new features, each time building upon the level of addiction that its existing users have already reached and the larger social "necessity" of being on Facebook, especially among college and high school kids.
By the time they allowed high school students (and later anyone) to join, Facebook was already fairly established with students, who already had enough "invested" in their accounts and knew that their real friends were in the same situation. The introduction of news feed may have angered those with concerns about privacy, but certainly not enough to make a significant number of users angry enough to leave. For those that did stay, News Feed reinforces the necessity of being on Facebook, because once you do have access to that kind of information about your friends, it's hard to turn it down.
This Beacon situation feels very much like News Feed, except that the impact on solidifying Facebook "addiction" will be less marked. Facebook and its features just become too important to most users (in college, not having an account can get you some very strange looks), and Zuckerberg et al. will continue to use that to their advantage in building their revenue stream.
One day -- maybe -- Facebook users will get together and protest something really important. So much energy, so much potential...
More like "Invade your privacy? (sure) or (yeah)"
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
"The Best Article Every day" reproduces other bloggers' content, taking away traffic and revenue from the actual authors. Read the original article at http://www.ideashower.com/blog/block-facebook-beacon/
As mentioned here: http://securitymusings.com/article/202/facebook-ruining-christmas:
Not only did Facebook show an ability to ruin the surprise of Christmas presents, it also begs greater questions about purchasing privacy and the first amendment. Rather than the NSA subpoenaing amazon.com to find out what books you like to read, perhaps they could just put up a flash web ad that reads your amazon cookies and finds out your latest "looked at" items?
Be careful out there, kids!
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
It always amuses me when people dismiss social networking sites by saying, "If I want a presence on the internet, I'll use a site that I built myself". Using a personal site/blog to keep in touch with people only works if all your friends read/write blogs and check their friends personal sites regularly.
To quote one of my roommates, "Blogs? Aren't those something high school kids do?".
But she checks Facebook several times a day. If you want to stay in touch with people you have to use the medium that the people you want to stay in touch with use. Sure there's a pretty bad signal/noise ratio on all of these social networking sites. Not wanting to use a (non special interest based) social networking platform because too many people use it, seems a little self defeating.
Also, the OP has obviously not been in college in the past 5 years. They practically give you a Facebook account with your student ID these days.
Steal my band's record! Seriously,