Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare?

Om Malik, Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at 4:19 PM PT Comments (168)

Mark Zuckerberg & Co. stood up in front of the advertising community in New York today and unveiled Facebook Ads, an ad system that allows companies to use the Facebook social graph and to develop highly targeted ads. Large brands such as Coca-Cola (KO), Sony Pictures (SNE) and Verizon (VZ) have signed on for this effort. Part of the engine powering this new ad system is called Beacon, which takes data from 44 web destinations and mashes it up with Facebook’s internal information to help build more focused advertising messages.

While it seems to be a clever idea, a quick review reveals that Beacon might turn out to be a privacy hairball for the company.

The 44 sites that have partnered with Facebook include everyone from Kongregate, LiveJournal, NYTimes (NYT), Sony Online, Blockbuster (BBI), Bluefly.com, STA Travel, The Knot, TripAdvisor, Travel Ticker, TypePad, viagogo, Vox, Yelp, WeddingChannel.com and Zappos.com.

These partner sites put a little a piece of Facebook javascript on their web site and certain information, cleverly (and innocuously) labeled as a user alert, is sent to Facebook. For instance, Fandago users can publish information about the movies they saw. It all seems like a clever idea because it lets Facebook triangulate your likes and dislikes even more, and deliver more focused ads.

Facebook Beacon provides advanced privacy controls so Facebook users can decide whether to distribute specific actions from participating sites with their friends.

Reading that line prompted the following questions, which I put to Facebook:

1. Can consumers opt out of this?
2. If yes, does their data get erased?
3. Will the sites for example, Fandango, stop sending all personal and any kind of information to Facebook once the user opts out?
4. Why didn’t they make this an opt-in feature, instead of being an opt-out feature?

Their PR spokesperson emailed me this response:

Users can opt-out of Beacon on a per-site basis. They can opt-out for each action, or they can opt-out to never have an affiliated site send stories to Facebook. For instance, a user that buys The Notebook from Blockbuster can stop a story from being published about it, or she can opt-out of having Blockbuster publish any actions she takes on the Blockbuster site.

The response doesn’t seem to answer my questions and basically makes it seem like users have control over this data, when in reality, this is a privacy disaster waiting to happen. The javascript on the Fandango site pops up a little screen which asks if you want to publish the information on Facebook. If you say no, your friends won’t see the information, but apparently Facebook still receives it. This means that if you are a Facebook member, Facebook will know what you are doing on each of their partner sites. And there is no way for you to opt out of that. Or is there? I asked Facebook to clarify and I am still waiting for them to write back.

As for the rest of their announcement, while long and elaborate, it doesn’t contain any information we haven’t already seen. MySpace (NWS) has been doing brand specific-pages for a while now, in addition to using other targeting techniques.

168 comments so far

November 6th, 2007
4:57 PM PT

i agree. total transparency and total user control is a must.

November 6th, 2007
5:27 PM PT

Your breakdown clearly shows the privacy problem and as a FB user I am most likely going to avoid going to the partner sites altogether rather than sit down and opt out of each.

I am sure there are lots of people who don’t want their purchases or web visits revealed to anyone. The “Share” feature on FB allows me to share what I want already and gives me complete control, I will never hand over that control.

I would much have preferred to see that the ad platform was only focused on the branded pages plus even better demographic targeting than offered by Facebook Flyers Pro.

November 6th, 2007
6:25 PM PT
Andy Hirsch said:

We will be happy to show you a better way! amhirsch2006@yahoo.com

November 6th, 2007
6:52 PM PT

Hmm, I dont understand this. How does Fandango know your facebook identity?

November 6th, 2007
8:45 PM PT
whoopie said:

do you honestly think they designed an access control matrix for fifty million users across dozens of sites? no way.

users won’t care at first until someone accidentally broadcasts to their social graph that they have been buying sex toys, viagra, or something else cheeky. then when it all stars leaking, the “WTF?!?!?!” phase will start and fb will throw out some patches to scan out “questionable” referrals, etc.

in the end something will have to replace cookies. in the current model, users are forced to trust the black box they can’t look inside…even fb can’t look inside it for any particular user because there is just too much data.

November 6th, 2007
8:52 PM PT
Sachin Balagopalan said:

and who says I want to endorse Coke…

http://tinyurl.com/23ehd8

November 6th, 2007
10:30 PM PT
C-Busy said:

The truly amazing thing about FB is how much personal data users enter. (and I mean tech-savvy, sophisticated people). Age, gender, marital status, religion, location, etc. What are they thinking? FB will redefine the art of identity-theft, phishing, and the like. For the bads guys, this is a beautiful place.

And regarding the so-called targeted ads (really socially engineered ads) Except for searching, I’d rather these types of passive ads be less targeted so when I buy stuff, I at least have a sense that I bought it for other than manipulated reasons. There’s enough of that pressure now.

November 6th, 2007
10:55 PM PT
Niyaz PK said:

Just Opt-out from Facebook itself.

November 6th, 2007
11:04 PM PT
vinstones said:

facebook IS a privacy nightmare, but its a choice..

better use of time to give your sites videos an instant makeover.. found video skins templates to is perfect for the task..

http://www.videoskintemplates.net/videoskinsblog/

November 6th, 2007
11:09 PM PT

This is a major problem. it’s the quick money. Facebook could become the 21st century rolodex, its clean, “trustworthy”, organized and… easy.

However, “trustworthy comes into question here, BIG TIME. To the point really where there is no grey area, Facebook is largely fed to the sharks for a flounder foray.

That’s right, Om has got it down and that’s that.

Facebook won’t be worth 1/15 of what people say it is when some does the same EXACT thing without this breach of privacy. And that’s what it is… when you sign up, the doted line doesn’t QUITE explain your susceptibility, perhaps deep in print, but there should really be a skull & cross bones like a smoking signal if you think giving out your identity is hazardous to your health.

Just my 2 cents.

-Americo

November 6th, 2007
11:11 PM PT

hmm, have not use facebook yet…

I’m not sure if it can generate some commercial values. Anyway heres the blueprint of internet millionaire get into millionaire mindset.

November 6th, 2007
11:55 PM PT
tomkricheck said:

This starts making OpenSocial more and more attractive, although as mentioned here: http://beta.resourcepad.com/storys/Fights_in_the_Playground_Facebook_vs_The_Rest_of_the_World/77, it comes with its own set of concerns.

All in all, I’d like to sit this one out and see how it affects the userbase.

November 7th, 2007
12:24 AM PT
Martin Lawrence said:

A quote by Albert Einstein comes to mind: “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep”

Could someone (Craig Newmark, Jimmy Wales?) build an open social platform that is NOT a scheme to maximally exploit private information?

While the scheme is the perfect solution to present billboards to a flock of sheep, I DO hope that intelligent individuals will not fall for this.

November 7th, 2007
3:26 AM PT

[...] GigaOm brings up the old privacy issue, (a topic constantly talked about with social network) yet we forget that we are the ones that populate the profiles and information on these free to use websites. Before we throw a rock out the window, we should first look in the mirror. [...]

November 7th, 2007
3:48 AM PT
Hallson said:

This will probably be driven off the users email address, so a simple way around it is to use multiple email addresses.

November 7th, 2007
3:49 AM PT
Mike Puchol said:

Now…what about Google? Is there a way to opt-out of their tracking systems? Put into the same bag:

  1. The millions of sites that use Google Analytics’ javascript tracking code, which sends information to Google about the browsing habits of a particular IP addresses. Compare this to Facebook’s 44 sites…you at the back, stop laughing!

  2. The millions of people who run searches on Google’s engine, thus giving information to Google about their search interest, also with their IP address.

  3. The millions of people using GMail, which openly admits to scanning the contents of sent and received messages for marketing purposes - thus tying #1 and #2 above to a real identity (the IPs you use to your email addresses).

  4. Geolocation of the above data by IP address can also give indication of travel and movement of each user.

Anyone remember that initiative by Google to listen to your TV by using your PC’s microphone, and targeting ads as a result? I think they dropped that one, but who is the biggest threat to privacy?

November 7th, 2007
4:00 AM PT
Alberto said:

I don’t think there is a (serious) privacy issue in project beacon, (like there isn’t one with Gmail for example), the question is more do I seriously want ALL my friends to know which book I bought from Amazon or what colour underwear I ordered from Calvin Klein?

November 7th, 2007
6:49 AM PT
Jonathan said:

this will soon turn into a high profile facebook revolt, just as it happend in the feeds feature over a year ago. young users are very techsavy and are quick to call foul if they feel their privacy is at risk. i think that’s what has really help facebook grow: ilusion of privacy. i am the type willing to let go of a little privacy in order to say: get better amazon recomendations or movies in netflix. some users don’t feel the same. using the arbirary opt in is probably going to piss a lot of people when the sheet starts to hit the fan, just like woopie said. it’s going to be kind of funny seeing the not so fb savy screw up by sahring the unshareable!!!!

November 7th, 2007
7:20 AM PT

[...] Malik queries as to whether this is a privacy nightmare, as opting out (from a “sending out” point of view), may not eliminate the data from [...]

November 7th, 2007
8:22 AM PT
Cavenger said:

Hmm, seems like a hairy situation. Privacy of one’s users should be priority number one.

You make a good point, seems like this should be “opt-in”

November 7th, 2007
8:48 AM PT

@Vijay

If you’re signed into Facebook, the JavaScript will know your identity.

November 7th, 2007
9:13 AM PT

I think Facebook’s rush to world domination runs the risk of too aggressive, non-consumer friendly things like Social Ads and Beacon. One question a friend of mine asked was what Facebook would do with Beacon-supplied purchasing data that I decided not to include in my feed - do they still retain it? That would suck pretty hugely.

I put some thinking into what I see as a pro forma solution for policy-based control in a post at:

http://greatfallsventures.wordpress.com/2007/11/06/facebook-thinks-my-friends-want-to-know-when-i-buy-hemorrhoid-cream-the-culmination-of-a-bad-month-for-privacy-and-my-views-on-the-solution/

November 7th, 2007
9:36 AM PT

[...] is Facebook a cat about to cough up a privacy hairball? Or the harbinger of a newly friendly relationship between marketers and web users? It’s [...]

November 7th, 2007
10:42 AM PT

@Mike Puchol, exactly. Anyone using Google Analytics has tracking information about users that’s being logged. Or Quantcast. Or you name it — there’s no end to JavaScript tracking going on out there. As you say, Om — Facebook will still be able to tie that back to particular profiles, but Microsoft and Yahoo both have ad programs that do the same thing, as well. The only real opt-out is not to take JavaScript.

November 7th, 2007
11:52 AM PT
Berlin said:

Just because it’s not obvious, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Google knows more about you than Facebook.

Beacon will work because kids like to brag about what they bought. If you’re over 24, you might not understand.

November 7th, 2007
1:10 PM PT
honewatson said:

Google may have IP addresses but it doesn’t always have names.

A family of four will all be doing completely different searches from the same IP. Facebook’s user data is pretty awesome.

The other thing is you might be doing a search for something dodgy on Google and it’s not like Google goes out and tells all your friends about it. Sounds like thats what Facebooks going to do.

I got to say I would have taken the money if I was that Mark guy. Web 2.0 is about to crash in a major way and with this aggressive new ad push facebook could quickly become another friendster.

I’m already thinking of ditching my real account accept I want to test out the ad programs first.

November 7th, 2007
1:23 PM PT

[...] Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare? [...]

November 7th, 2007
1:41 PM PT

[...] για κάμερες στους δρόμους. Το Facebook είναι πλέον privacy nightmare — και δε νομίζω πως τα όσα έχει δείξει μέχρι στιγμής [...]

November 7th, 2007
2:29 PM PT

Facebook Ad Platform Launches Amidst Much Criticism

Facebook, the popular social network has announced the launch of its own advertising network, Facebook Ads, which went live yesterday. The advertising platform will provide three products to advertisers: Social Ads, Facebook Pages and Beacon, in additi…

November 7th, 2007
2:49 PM PT
Jon Gilkison said:

89.534% of facebook users aren’t going to:

a. notice
b. give a sh*t

True story. +/- 10% of course.

November 7th, 2007
3:31 PM PT
thegrahambaileyblog said:

I have to believe this will end in lawsuits. This whole system seems incredibly flawed. Facebook as an organisation seems to believe more in profit systems than a good user experience.

November 7th, 2007
10:38 PM PT

[...] Is Facebook Beacon a privacy nightmare? [...]

November 7th, 2007
11:45 PM PT

[...] of online advertising has dominated the conversation: from MySpace’s Hyper targeted ads to Facebook’s new ad-system to broadband advertising systems introduced by companies such as AnchorFree. The advertising of [...]

November 8th, 2007
12:39 AM PT
Steve Jobs said:

Jon Gilkison’s right, Chicken Little.

November 8th, 2007
2:44 AM PT
Original Sin said:

What Jon Gilkison said.

November 8th, 2007
7:37 AM PT
jerrysfl said:

You can block Beacon pretty easily without interfering with any normal Facebook use:

http://www.ideashower.com/blog/block-facebook-beacon/

November 8th, 2007
10:54 AM PT

[...] Next Stop For Facebook: World Domination TechCrunch: The Facebook Ad Backlash Begins GigaOm: Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare? Sphere: Related [...]

November 8th, 2007
12:04 PM PT

[...] news of online advertising has dominated the conversation: from MySpace’s hyper- targeted ads to Facebook’s new ad system to broadband advertising systems introduced by companies such as AnchorFree. The advertising, of [...]

November 8th, 2007
8:36 PM PT

Give Facebook’s Beacon The Kibosh, Adblocking Styles!

When I was writing about how “average” Facebookers might not like how the new Social Ads might be implemented, in the back of my mind I was wondering how “above-average” Facebookers might take to it.  Geeky coding types being s…

November 9th, 2007
5:50 AM PT

[...] Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare? « GigaOM [...]

November 9th, 2007
2:58 PM PT

[...] Om Malik: “Reading that line prompted the following questions, which I put to [...]

November 9th, 2007
4:30 PM PT

[...] by Om Malik Friday, November 9, 2007 at 4:30 PM PT | No comments It has been 48 hours since I asked Facebook to clarify the point about whether a user’s data is still being passed to them from their web partners even after the user chooses to opt out of [...]

November 9th, 2007
6:25 PM PT

[...] has been 48 hours since I asked Facebook to clarify the point about whether a user’s data is still being passed to them from their web partners even after the user chooses to opt out of [...]

November 9th, 2007
10:11 PM PT

[...] Om thinks the same, and you can find a guide on how to block this intrusive product here. Technorati Tags: facebook,facebook pages,business,social media,facebook beacon,om malik [...]

November 11th, 2007
8:21 AM PT

[...] So If you have no clue as to what Facebook Beacon is I suggest you read up. [...]

November 12th, 2007
10:16 AM PT

[...] how users will react. In response to these concerns, William Tildesley created a Facebook group and Om Malik has questioned a representative from Facebook about how users can avoid being tracked, but the [...]

November 12th, 2007
12:50 PM PT

[...] Facebook’s Beacon Raises Privacy Concerns - Facebook yesterday revealed its new three-pronged advertising strategy to mixed reviews. The most common reaction among bloggers was one of confusion–particularly with regard to Beacon, the program that “empowers” users to become product endorsers. Advertisers pay to put a little piece of javascript on their site that sends user interaction information back to Facebook. The user has to agree to allow the Web site to do this, and if they do, their purchase information is sent to their friends via a Facebook news feed.   [...]

November 13th, 2007
12:19 AM PT
chris said:

Just block everything and carry on like it never happened. If you use fire fox download the the “blocksite” add on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3145
Add http://ww.facebook.com/beacon/* to your black list to block beacon and Add http://ads.*.facebook.com to block the flash sidebar adds, and the adds in the sponsored posts.

November 13th, 2007
11:55 AM PT
Seni Thomas said:

Great post. I really believe that the true power of fan pages will not be in building more branded destinations, but in building conversation spaces for consumers to communicate with brands.

Here are my thoughts more fleshed out:

http://senithomas.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/facebook-fan-pages-guide-destinations-vs-collaborative-conversation-spaces/

Cheers,

Seni

November 14th, 2007
6:08 AM PT

[...] sur différents sites partenaires (cf. Facebook ads definitely creepy, possibly illegal et Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare?) pour mieux cibler votre profil et celui de vos potes. Autant vous dire que cela pose de très [...]

November 14th, 2007
8:48 AM PT

[...] a follow-up to my last post on privacy, David from the Web Analytics Forum kindly pointed me to an article that explores the ways in which privacy continues to come under attack from the media darling, [...]

November 19th, 2007
8:39 AM PT

[...] the browser level (in Firefox). Beacon is one of the things powering the new Facebook social ads. Go read more about how it works, and why you might want to do more than just adjust the privacy settings in Facebook. (Which you [...]

November 20th, 2007
7:29 PM PT

[...] of the fallout with regards to beacon is the concern over privacy. People are concerned about their online activities being shared on facebook. However, the toast [...]

November 20th, 2007
9:08 PM PT

Hi Om,

Let me put this question to you: did Facebook lose its users when it made the newsfeed (or, in this privacy context, the stalkerfeed)? If anything it made people more addicted. I don’t think people will react negatively on the privacy front. What may be an issue is a backlash against unsolicited ads. People avoid clicking ads and feel good about it, so this push strategy may piss some off.

That all said, my results show better CTR since the change, though it’s still results on my flyers, so IDK if they’ve also been affected.

November 21st, 2007
12:16 AM PT

[...] ad service was pegged as a potential privacy nightmare the day it was launched (November 6) by Om Malik, who raised some pointed questions to the good folks at FB and received responses that were vague [...]

November 21st, 2007
12:42 PM PT
November 22nd, 2007
11:18 AM PT
Oz said:

OPT-IN NOT OPT-OUT.

How hard is that to understand, Zuckerberg?

November 22nd, 2007
4:39 PM PT

[...] Facebook’s own page about Beacon is very vague about how it works—just some of techno-/pr-jargon boasting how cool it is. A Google search for “facebook beacon” is not much more help…mostly just links to the people complaining about Beacon invading their privacy and articles regurgitating the complaints. Others, such as Om Malik, have also tried to get more information about Beacon, but with little more… [...]

November 24th, 2007
11:31 AM PT

[...] the typical rants against insidious stealth advertising techniques, but privacy concerns are the primary cause for alarm. It may even be illegal. But I doubt [...]

November 24th, 2007
2:29 PM PT

[...] vad som kan vara försök från Facebooks sida att mörka det hela, även Silicon Alley Insider och Giga Om har riktigt intressant analys kring situationen med Facebook [...]

November 25th, 2007
5:39 AM PT

[...] fact yes. There is something that can be done. You can open your API and use Beacons to spread more content without the use of search engines. Remember that Beacons opt you in by [...]

November 25th, 2007
9:14 AM PT

[...] wondering Colin, if you have any plans to address the Facebook Beacon in a future piece? I know I’ve blocked it via Firefox, but with the size of FB growing [...]

November 25th, 2007
7:49 PM PT
Steve Arun said:

Great Post OM! We were about to launch development of an small facebook application, now we have scrapped the same.

I came across several posts like this, when I was browsing a site hosted by Stanford University Class on Facebook study. I accidentally landed on there page, when I was researching on who is using my theme Redie 3.0 :)and that help me to think again.

No one still sure about the type of information facebook collect? Even though we block the facebook beacon using firefox extension, chances are there if they collect more informations of users from the activity done on machine itself.

Thanks for this great info.

November 26th, 2007
6:14 AM PT

[...] Gigaom lists the companies which have partnered with Facebook. [...]

November 26th, 2007
8:03 AM PT

[...] opt-out (per site or per interaction), rather than choosing to opt-in, in the first place. There is also uncertainly that if you do in fact opt-out, whether or not Facebook still gets sent your third-party [...]

November 26th, 2007
8:41 AM PT

[...] basic review of the issue. Facebook’s Beacon program (already questioned as a possible “Privacy Nightmare” by GigaOm) lets users share their own data about what they like and dislike with other [...]

November 26th, 2007
9:38 AM PT

Here is a quote from Facebook privacy settings which I got when I tried to disable this crap “Please note that these settings only affect notifications on Facebook. You will still be notified on affiliate websites when they send stories to Facebook. You will be able to decline individual stories at that time.” So even though I declined to not have my privacy violated, I still have to put up with these pop up messages?

November 26th, 2007
7:40 PM PT

[...] has recently announced plans to launch its own social advertising styled on Facebook’s controversial Beacon system within the next six [...]

November 27th, 2007
7:28 AM PT

[...] has, of this writing, been trying a new marketing partnership program with several online stores and websites.  Now, when you purchase a book on “dealing with [...]

November 27th, 2007
8:17 AM PT

[...] rigtig meget snak om Facebook som annonceplatform. Og mens snakken primært har drejet sig om, hvorvidt produktet Facebook Beacon er noget skidt, har andre testet Facebook som annonceplatform for at se, hvilke resultater, man kan [...]

November 27th, 2007
11:17 AM PT

[...] from gigaom: “…this is a privacy disaster waiting to happen. The javascript on the Fandango site pops up a little screen which asks if you want to publish the information on Facebook. If you say no, your friends won’t see the information, but apparently Facebook still receives it. This means that if you are a Facebook member, Facebook will know what you are doing on each of their partner sites. And there is no way for you to opt out of that…” (clicky.) [...]

November 28th, 2007
4:21 AM PT

[...] childish allure it’s like Facebook status on ketamine… which given the general disquiet about the Facesoft Beacon advertising system is a somewhat apt analogy. Ketamine will either put [...]

November 28th, 2007
5:14 AM PT

[...] when it happened), but now there is the problem of advertising (ABC political ads for one), privacy while shopping online (Beacon) and I’m sure more to [...]

November 28th, 2007
2:29 PM PT

[...] Posted on November 28, 2007 by dojan Just så skrev Om Malik på sin blogg Gigaom den 6 november i år. Och svarade själv “ja” i slutet av inlägget. Malik [...]

November 28th, 2007
10:23 PM PT
Guardian Angel said:

I have a lot of younger friends on Facebook. I’m almost 40 but my workplace is full of young hip gen Y er’s. You know, young dumb and having fun, naive, but all good kids. I fear some of there lives may be seriously screwed 10 years from now.

November 29th, 2007
7:12 AM PT

[...] Facebook announced Beacon, Om called Beacon a potential privacy hairball noting that even if you opt out of the information publishing, [...]

November 29th, 2007
11:01 PM PT

[...] (0) Three weeks is a long time on the Internet. It was on November 6, I raised the question: Is Facebook Beacon a privacy nightmare? Three days later, my next post, Facebook’s Cruel Intentions elicited some response from the [...]

November 30th, 2007
6:47 AM PT

[...] to grow its ad network into social networking environments and how Facebook has developed their own new advertising platform for use within their social network. Advertisers are always going to follow [...]

November 30th, 2007
8:45 AM PT

[...] sneakin’ with Beacon. Facebook application snoops on your shopping, has folks up in arms. Thousands of men now explaining random jewelry purchases that have been [...]

November 30th, 2007
10:26 PM PT

[...] headliners like “I’m in Privacy Trouble.. Bitch“. The problem is Beacon’s advertising capabilities are opt-in by default, which raised eyebrows almost immediately. Since most users weren’t [...]

December 1st, 2007
6:20 AM PT

[...] read more | digg story [...]

December 1st, 2007
8:14 AM PT

[...] by Stefan Berteau at Computer Associates has shown that with respect to Facebook’s Beacon, it really doesn’t matter what your opt in status means with respect to your [...]

December 1st, 2007
10:42 AM PT

[...] Beacon advertising technology was launched in first week of November with 44 partner sites including giants like Coca-Cola (KO), Sony Pictures (SNE) and Verizon (VZ). The list does not end here, [...]

December 2nd, 2007
10:04 AM PT

[...] they’re doing it and before they know it they’ve signed up and cannot opt out. Facebook has been asked several times if users can opt out of the service, the response most are given is that yes, you can opt out of [...]

December 2nd, 2007
10:05 AM PT
Do Reviews said:

Great post, if anyone is interested on learning How to block Facebook Beacon completely there is an out line at http://doreviews.com/how-to-block-facebook-beacon/

December 2nd, 2007
3:46 PM PT

[...] It seems that Facebook is going through some growing pains. Their Beacon product is getting trashed left and right as Web 2.0 geeeks question privacy issues. [...]

December 3rd, 2007
12:01 AM PT

[...] Plenty of people were worried about the privacy implications (though not as much as the recent Beacon uproar), yet today the Mini-Feed seems strategic and [...]

December 3rd, 2007
1:03 AM PT

[...] Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare?: GigaOM described the new Facebook advertisement delivery system called “Beacon” might turn out to be a privacy hairball for the company. Read the post clicking the link above. [...]

December 3rd, 2007
4:02 AM PT

[...] las primeras críticas, Facebook modificó el funcionamiento del programa, permitiendo a cada usuario desactivar [...]

December 3rd, 2007
5:24 AM PT

[...] the total balls-up that is the Facebook Beacon advertising scheme which is now being described as a privacy nightmare. How times change. TCUK digg_url = [...]

December 3rd, 2007
5:56 AM PT

[...] those of you who weren’t following the Facebook beacon fiasco - it’s become quite a nightmare for Facebook and they have already capitulated. Facebook [...]

December 3rd, 2007
9:05 AM PT

[...] Facebook began utilizing an advertising system they call “Beacon,” which is one of the aforementioned “micro-targeted” advertising systems used to connect [...]

December 3rd, 2007
9:54 AM PT

[...] gigaom here are some of the particiapting sites that I also plan to boycott: The 44 sites that have [...]

December 3rd, 2007
6:43 PM PT

[...] a post about Facebook’s beacon technology. In course of my homework for writing this post, I visited several other blogs that provided me useful information. I picked their point of view and reproduced it in my post with [...]

December 3rd, 2007
8:55 PM PT

[...] response to an issue which has created headlines such as, “Does Facebook Hate Christmas?,” “Is Facebook a Privacy Nightmare?” and “Are Facebook’s Social Ads Illegal?” With enough voices, and media publicity, the [...]

December 4th, 2007
1:45 AM PT

[...] advertising gets more pervasive, intrusive - and therefore less effective. ‘Nough [...]

December 5th, 2007
1:30 AM PT

[...] Nutzen daraus: Habe den feuchten Traum eines jeden Vermarkters, eine immer sendende Datenboje, bei facebook beacon genannt mithilfe dieses Firefox Addons ausgeperrt. Weitere Infos bei [...]

December 5th, 2007
12:41 PM PT

[...] being tracked, but posted to their Facebook News Feed. This resulted in a gargantuan backlash over privacy issues, causing several companies to withdraw from the service and even prompted some users to leave [...]

December 5th, 2007
1:20 PM PT

[...] O Facebook e a privacidade por Alexandre Fugita Um dos assuntos que me chamou a atenção nos últimos dias é uma funcionalidade adicionada ao Facebook chamada Beacon, um mês atrás. O Beacon é uma ferramenta de recomendação que analisa os hábitos de navegação dos usuários do Facebook em alguns sites e informa sua rede de amigos sobre suas ações. Mais ou menos um BigBrother das suas andanças pela internet. Tudo isso não teria causado polêmica não fosse o fato do Beacon funcionar sem você solicitar e sem possibilidade de opt-out fácil. [...]

December 5th, 2007
5:18 PM PT

[...] called “Beacon” that lets websites send status to your mini-feed. It immediately drew a lot of criticism because of its invasion to privacy, to the point that many people figured out ways to block [...]

December 6th, 2007
2:30 AM PT
pete said:

Seems like you were way ahead of the rest of us!

December 6th, 2007
6:43 AM PT

[...] just gotten to the point of assuming that all social networking sites are Ponzi schemes to bring eyeballs to ads by sending out email “on my [...]

December 6th, 2007
8:59 AM PT

[...] How would you feel if you were at a party and in the middle of your conversation with friends the guy hosting the party announced to everyone what your last purchase was and if you’d like one too you should come and talk to him? Kind of creepy huh? [...]

December 6th, 2007
9:55 PM PT

[...] These partner sites put a little a piece of Facebook javascript on their web site and certain information, cleverly (and innocuously) labeled as a user alert, is sent to Facebook. For instance, Fandago users can publish information about the movies they saw. It all seems like a clever idea because it lets Facebook triangulate your likes and dislikes even more, and deliver more focused ads. - GigaOM [...]

December 8th, 2007
4:18 PM PT

[...] guide, courtesy of yours truly, is about Facebook Beacon, the outside-website-integration idea that provoked a lot of ruckus among techies because it wasn’t as clearly opt-in as it should have been. That, in turn, [...]

December 10th, 2007
6:23 PM PT

[...] may already know, but a very controversial ad system called “Beacon”has recently been added to your Facebook profile meaning external websites (Amazon, Target, shoes, [...]

December 11th, 2007
7:12 AM PT
December 11th, 2007
8:15 AM PT

[...] are not saved in their database. With the recent Yahoo! Leaking Data and even more recently Facebooks Beacon debacle this is a great step by [...]

December 11th, 2007
8:33 AM PT

[...] website they visited, searches they made, has been recorded and saved for monitoring pourposes. Om Malik reported on November: Mark Zuckerberg & Co. stood up in front of the advertising community in New York today and [...]

December 12th, 2007
5:34 PM PT

[...] that specializes in targeted advertising. They gather data about your usage on Facebook (and 40+ other sites) in order to server up advertising that you’re more likely to click [...]

December 13th, 2007
3:24 PM PT

[...] Facebook’s recent Beacon kerfuffle raised the ire of its users. Facebook tracked users’ purchases on affiliated sites and [...]

December 14th, 2007
4:08 AM PT

[...] nicht die gleichen Fehler machen wie bei Facebook’s Beacon, nicht dass es auch hier zu einem Albtraum [...]

December 15th, 2007
4:33 PM PT

[...] several weeks of mounting criticism (see here, here and here) Facebook’s CEO issued a public apology, and began steps to make Beacon [...]

December 16th, 2007
1:28 PM PT

[...] note that this is the exact opposite Facebook Beacon from a privacy perspective. I’m talking about taking small amounts of publc profile data [...]

December 16th, 2007
1:32 PM PT

[...] note that this is the exact opposite Facebook Beacon from a privacy perspective. I’m talking about taking small amounts of publc profile data [...]

December 16th, 2007
7:46 PM PT

[...] note that this is the exact opposite Facebook Beacon from a privacy perspective. I’m talking about taking small amounts of public profile data [...]

December 18th, 2007
8:32 AM PT
Ritchenya said:

I realize I’m a little late to the party, but I just have to say that your reference to the potential, “privacy hairball” is a brilliant use of language. Loved it!

–R

December 20th, 2007
4:53 PM PT

[...] daily basis and really see some of the process that is helping formulate their points of view. When a story like Facebook Beacon breaks, I can get a feel for the sentiment from marketing bloggers within a couple minutes as the [...]

December 23rd, 2007
1:42 AM PT

[...] GigaOm saw it as “a privacy disaster waiting to happen”. [...]

December 25th, 2007
9:46 PM PT

[...] their issues with the newer Beacon addition (Beacongate), which was heavily discussed in the blogosphere. Growing at such a rapid rate, I am sure that Facebook will definitely show up in the headlines for [...]

December 26th, 2007
10:18 AM PT

[...] they’re doing it and before they know it they’ve signed up and cannot opt out. Facebook has been asked several times if users can opt out of the service, the response most are given is that yes, you can opt out of [...]

December 28th, 2007
2:21 AM PT

[...] made the mistake of making the service an opt-out, instead of opt-in. The fact that Facebook receives your actions even if you opt-out out of the feature didn’t sit well with consumers as well as advertisers [...]

December 28th, 2007
2:58 PM PT

[...] machte, egal ob es der Rest des Rests der Welt wissen wollte oder nicht. Manche mögen das als Albtraum bezeichnen, allein, sie erkennen nicht, wie selbstlos Facebook dabei gehandelt hat, indem es [...]

January 3rd, 2008
4:07 AM PT

[...] Facebook is no longer the golden child and is being attacked in many ways (be it from their advertising strategy or through the emergence of competitors such as Google and LinkedIn) - their need to stay [...]

January 3rd, 2008
8:35 AM PT

[...] 3rd, 2008 (8:35am) Anne Zelenka No Comments Facebook has been pilloried for not caring enough about our privacy. But now they face a call to offer data portability, [...]

January 3rd, 2008
11:52 AM PT

[...] Is Facebook Beacon a Privacy Nightmare? (Gigaom) [...]

January 4th, 2008
4:22 AM PT
asdf said:

)

January 4th, 2008
4:30 AM PT
celentanno said:

Hi? i thin it easy

January 5th, 2008
7:44 PM PT

[...] make several booboos around this in its very short life. Like this. Oh and let’s not forget this. Ahh the follies of youth. No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this [...]

January 6th, 2008
11:34 PM PT

[...] that be the leap that wasn’t pre-looked) of Facebook’s consumer advertising platform Beacon, Amazon has allowed its users to build up records of what they’ve bought and share it with [...]

January 8th, 2008
5:17 AM PT

[...] stuff does matter, and that these issues are thrown into sharp relief by events such as the recent Facebook Beacon debacle. Essentially, organisations like Facebook and Google make their money out of information [...]

January 9th, 2008
8:58 AM PT

[...] Update: ไม่ขาดคำ มีปัญหาเรื่อง Beacon ที่ละเมิดสิทธิของ Users [...]

January 11th, 2008
5:53 AM PT
Dale D said:

With the amount of traffic flowing through