

Zuckerberg apologizes for Beacon -- announces a full opt-out - mqt
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=7584397130

======
tx
How does facebook get that data? My understanding that web stores upload the
data to facebook? Which ones? I bought a few items at Amazon, bookpool and
BHPhotoVideo just recently and haven't seen any references to FaceBook. Who's
participating?

The feature really IS dumb. While I generally don't care for my friends seeing
what I buy online, I absolutely don't want my wife to get a notification about
the gift I got for her for Christmas.

------
jey
"full opt-out" in the title is very misleading. They are disabling the mini-
feed and newsfeed stories only! FB still gets the info on your browsing/buying
habits by default, unless you would click the link to not share the info with
facebook _every time you make a purchase_.

~~~
brlewis
From the article: "If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon
actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions
even when partners send them to Facebook."

~~~
karthikv
It says it won't "store" those actions sent by the partners. Its not clear if
they will "use" that information in any other way.

------
dcurtis
I'd just like to say that, implemented poorly or not, I respect the idea
behind Beacon and understand what they were trying to do. Many people are
angry over the privacy issues; few people seem to acknowledge that the root
idea is actually pretty good and somewhat revolutionary.

Just like the news feed was, maybe Beacon is just ahead of its time.

~~~
mwerty
news feed was defended based on the increase in usage (hits, etc.) of
facebook. I'm guessing usage dropped during this whole experiment - it would
certainly have been mentioned otherwise.

As for revolutionary, a lot of apps were trying to do related things - most
notably the books apps - you could buy a book that a friend was reading and
the app maker would get a cut from amazon. To me, it seems a very small step
up from there.

~~~
dcurtis
I disagree that it is a "very small step up" from the book application.
There's a pretty big problem, I think, with web applications being pretty much
unable to communicate with each other or with other types of services.
Facebook is attempting to solve that with the most "complete" system created
so far, Beacon.

I think we'll see a lot more like it in the future. With extremely good
privacy controls, no doubt.

~~~
mwerty
Conceded. Cross-site communication is a problem I had not thought of.

I'm still not sure what their novelty is given how doubleclick's cookies
working across different portals were being talked about during the dot-com
days. I thought Beacon was implemented using the same technique plus direct
http calls.

Is there some deviousness I do not know about?

------
shayan
how about facebook offering an _opt-in_ instead of an opt-out????

I doubt most people (nontechies) even know about this feature and what it
does, or they wont find it important enough go and opt-out

this is not good enough they need to do more...

------
kajecounterhack
I actually liked beacon too. But perhaps its cause I didn't buy anything; I
think that was users' biggest concerns, that their shopping habits were being
displayed.

------
immad
Am I the only one that finds this Beacon "controversy" story very boring?

~~~
joeguilmette
i actually think Beacon is a great idea, and i really like it. i use gamefly,
and when they shipped a game awhile ago, an old friend saw it and sent me a
msg, and we reconnected talking about the game that i got.

not anything terribly useful, but neither is facebook really. it's a neat
feature though.

for those worried about privacy, my response to these things is always the
same. _if you don't want people to know about it, don't do it on the
internet._ why would you sign up for facebook if you dont want your personal
information on the web?

also, for those of you still complaining about the latest update to Beacon, he
said it right in his post. Beacon will no longer collect data sent to facebook
by vendors if you opt-out. thus, they will not continue to collect your data
as they have in the past.

------
nickb
A fumble after a fumble... they really need to hire a competent CEO.

~~~
Xichekolas
Eh, their problem is that they keep making things that are technically cool,
without really considering how socially awkward they might be.

I'm sure the news feed stuff was fun as hell to implement for them as coders,
and it definitely gave Facebook a defining feature, but they didn't consider
the social consequences of automated-stalking.

Reading this makes me wonder if Mark just adapted his apology from the news
feed debacle to this instance. I should go find that and do a comparison.

Easy thing to do is just not have a Facebook account. Privacy issue solved!

~~~
immad
But the news feed in retrospect has turned out to be a huge success. It seems
to me that they just try to push the boundaries and find a balance that
everyone is happy with.

