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.'"
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.
And then they will tell there Amazon partiners and next time you check you're email you'll will get a recommendation about a book all about using the correct grammar for writing Englishings.
Next thing, you'll get phone calls offering you fasterinternetserviceprovidings
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.
A guess based on what I heard; because the vocal minority scared the partners more than it scared Facebook. The main shopping drive right now is Christmas; making this the absolute worst time to introduce a tool that publishes your shopping habits to your family and friends. Retailers get that, even if thick-headed social networking bosses don't.
If a couple of retailers get grumpy - or even just one of sufficient size (ie. Amazon), then Facebook would definitely want to tone it down, and try again in the new year.
This is all about business, kids.
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
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,