Comments on: facebook’s beacon program isn’t the spawn of the devil – why you’ll grow to love it too

By: Jordan Mitchell

Jordan Mitchell — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:25:05 +0000

@Shawn: Agreed that it all has to revolve around transparency and end value. Facebook has limited this to notification however, not to collection. The problem is if FB is still collecting the data. Where’s the value and transparency to me of those data collection efforts if I opt-out of notifying my friends?

By: Shawn Ward

Shawn Ward — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:16:18 +0000

@ Deepak: hard to argue with the track record of Zuck to date, even harder to imagine FB becoming larger/more successful with a ’seasoned’ CEO. They are firing on all cylinders now.

@Jordan: a big difference between Beacon and Double Click is the transparency and value to end user. Beacon data is immediately shown via news feeds, etc creating a utility for the user. Once FB users get hooked on Beacon data they will demand it. Unlike the DC scenario where there was no demanded benefit from web surfers (to them it was solely a breach of confidentiality where Double Click was looking to profit off them).

By: Deepak

Deepak — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:35:46 +0000

I don’t think Beacon is inherently evil. In fact, its an interesting idea. While I have never perused it as far as I know (only exposure is seeing stuff in my feed), the whole process seems to have been badly thought through. First of all, I would like action level control, but leaving that aside, it still seems that Zuckerberg and co. just didn’t think things through. My first reaction was something along the lines of “Mark should have hired a proper CEO before he decided to take on the world”. It’s clear that he has no idea of how to run a big business. He should do what Brin and Page did and bring in someone with experience, someone capable of doing some scenario planning.

By: Jordan Mitchell

Jordan Mitchell — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 05:09:40 +0000

Scott/Todd, media companies have indeed been profiling us for years — no question. I don’t even care. But what has changed with beacon is the marriage of PII (you can’t really get more personally identifiable, can you?) with widely distributed collection of browsing behavior. Many spyware companies of 2003-2004 didn’t have it this good.

This is about notification AND collection, not just notification. Perhaps Zuck knew there was going to be an issue, and focused it on the notification issue since that was lest costly to “fix”. In any event, their justification of distributed user profiling should center around user value and control — full user control.

The question is: will the users care? If not, then this move by FB will indeed be unparalleled. If so, we’re just beginning the backlash. If I cared about this enough, I’d take the time to compare this to the DoubleClick fiasco of 1999 which, as I recall, also centered around the marriage of personally identifiable information (PII) with browsing behavior data collection. That was a big, big deal — how different from the FB data collection efforts of today.

One other note, Facebook’s data collection opportunities aren’t limited to their beacon partners. They can collect valuable user browsing behavior anywhere they want simply by running ads — probably by default through the MSFT ad network.

By: Dave Schappell

Dave Schappell — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:57:22 +0000

I’m actually a huge fan of Beacon — in fact, I think it’s one of the more useful web ’services’ that have been released. The first version of this utility was when I added the Amazon Wishlisting App on facebook (I’m not sure who the App creator is); I was totally psyched when I saw my off-facebook-action (when I added an item to my wishlist) automatically carried onto facebook. But, I didn’t like how little control I had over the action (for instance, what if I added something embarrassing to my list )

But, Beacon gives me gobs of control over what gets displayed and shared — maybe the first version of it was a little loose, but I’m really liking the ability to easily opt-out (for individual, and all, similar transations).

Best of all, it doesn’t require me to do anything with my login/account at other sites — it just knows that I’ve got an existing cookie and gives me the option to share activities. Personally, I like that much better than the ‘import your email addresses’ type services on other sites, which necessitates recreation of social networks.

I look forward to future iterations/improvements.

By: Scott Rafer

Scott Rafer — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:47:08 +0000

@joe we’re not missing that point. We just think it’s silly to pick on facebook to have that option be an easy one when there are dozens of cookies on your machine for similar services. They have been there for years if you haven’t erased them, and there’s no easy opt out for those. The hypocrisy is what bugs us.

By: fred

fred — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:20:24 +0000

CA has pointed out that even if you are not logged in, Beacon is still chirping. The fact that this was not disclosed and that so many “web professionals” are still running the wrong story could lead one to believe that partners are sending info to facebook regardless of your status.

Don’t be surprised if….

Even if you don’t even have a facebook account, use a partner site for a while, and then later decide to get a facebook account, the “social graph” is going to put two and two together.

By: joe

joe — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:34:32 +0000

“Not one, Not two, but yes THREE opt-out opportunities exist.”

You’re missing the point that the ENTIRE SERVICE should be opt-in by default. Each and every Facebook user should have to go to their Profile and activate the service BEFORE ANY information is offered to be shared.

By: Scott Rafer

Scott Rafer — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:22:30 +0000

@500hats @sawicki dave’s right. kongregate’s site isn’t. it’s an omnipresent 3rd party cookie system.

By: dave mcclure

dave mcclure — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:25:08 +0000

not sure that’s correct either… i think as long as the other site can recognize your FB info (ie, cookie) then they will popup the Beacon info & send to FB.

but i might be wrong… since i’m pretty much always logged into FB