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.'"

Comments

Let's all say goodbye to Facebook

[QuietLagoon]

Facebook requires the good graces of its users to make money by selling the attention span of those users to advertisers. So what does Facebook do? Simple, piss off those very users it needs to make money.

Facebook says it is a vocal minority who are complaining. Perhaps it is the same minority who make up a majority of the page hits that the advertisers pay for?

Facebook is no smarter than the record companies. You do not anger the constituents of your revenue stream.

Help I need advice from somebody

[Anonymous Coward]

Our small startup company makes a successful online scientific app and management got it in their heads after talking to some of our investors that we need to drop everything and spend the next three months cramming "socialization" features into it. We have no time for this (we need to make performance and scalability improvements). I would prefer not to leave the job with its short commute, good pay, and free lunches. But everyone is drinking the Kool Aid, and nobody seems to realize that this fad is almost over. What do I do?