back to article MoveOn tells Facebook to stop shining Beacon

Facebook has been hit by yet another privacy backlash, this time from an online democracy watchdog which has mounted a campaign against part of the social networking site's new advertising strategy. MoveOn.org charges that Facebook's Beacon ad program violates privacy because it automatically broadcasts what a user has bought …

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  1. Colin Millar
    Thumb Down

    So is this a social network

    Sounds more like what these users want is Yahoo Chat with pictures.

    Maybe MoveOn should form a splinter group - ArseBook maybe

  2. gizmo
    Stop

    The dark side of "social networking"

    Wake up you clowns. It's nothing but a marketing ploy. If they want me to sign up for their identity stealing and ad spamming services, they will have to pay me a monthly fee.

    ArseBook indeed

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    MoveOn's real issue

    MoveOn's real issue is that people can see who donated to the organization via a Facebook link/ad. Now why should MoveOn supporters be ashamed of that?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How to protect your privacy, if you're paranoid.

    Privacy nuts: just add *beacon.facebook.com/* to your Firefox AdBlock Plus blacklist.

  5. Adam Buckland
    Coat

    It already exists

    http://www.arsebook.org/

  6. EnricoSuarve

    They may have a point

    Ever been asked for details of a recent transaction as part of a security validation process by your bank?

    I have

    Seems to me this information could actually be quite useful to some people

  7. Colin Millar
    Alien

    @Adam

    I should have known

    As I write squatters are probably registering books in the name of every body part.

    The only one that is safe will be eyebook because everyone would just think that was a really weird way to spell "i"

  8. Matt Bradley
    Alert

    Privacy / Schmivacy

    Anybody who thinks that the average Facebook user gives a shit about privacy needs to see this page:

    http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7280590949

    (face book login required)

    For those who don't have a login: The above is a PUBLIC facebook group (I.E. visible to anybody who joins), into which (mostly) young users have posted their own mobile phone numbers. About 48 and counting so far...

    The mind boggles.

  9. Jack Hughes
    Alert

    Say wha?

    >> Privacy nuts: just add *beacon.facebook.com/* to your Firefox AdBlock Plus blacklist.

    And that's going to help how? That'll protect the privacy of others, whose purchases get shown, but how will that stop yours getting shown to others?

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    MoveOn: online democracy watchdog?

    Also, Pigs fly, elephants are pink, I have some land in Florida for sale and this extra bridge Ive been trying to unload. This article would have been just fine without trying to put a positive spin on the anti-american liberal facisist at MoveOn.org. If you put lipstick on a pig, its still a pig.

  12. Sceptical Bastard

    Oxymoron

    Hang on! Facebook? Privacy? Mutually exclusive, I'd have thought.

  13. Andy

    Facebook is lame

    I've always said it. And now that they're becoming evil I'm feeling like they're too much of a soft target and I should pick on something else.

    There's a *reason* why I've lost contact with my school mates. I hated them and I have new friends. Quite why people think it's so fantastic to connect with people you haven't seen for 20 years is beyond me.

    Remember what happened to Usenet when AOL made affordable internet available to the average American? The phrase "me too" still gives me a tic. It's the same with Facebook, but thankfully they're all contained on one website and they're not spilling out all over the show.

    So I guess actually I'm all in favour of Facebook.

  14. Keith T
    Paris Hilton

    social networking = social engineering?

    Are folks beginning to wake up to the fact that these sites are not really there for their benefit. There's gold in them thar net junkies and there are swarms of prospectors coming over the hills to mine the pockets of the punters.

    We just need to link Facebook up to Tesco Clubcard and it's all sorted.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I quite liked some of my school friends

    but each to their own.

  16. Chris Cheale

    Hang on...

    Surely the fault lies (mostly) with the "external partner sites"? You shop at whatever.com and it's them that are allowing Facebook access to private details of a transaction between you and whatever.com.

    whatever.com should have some kind of "opt-in" (rather than "opt-out") that you, the customer, has to complete to allow them to share this information with their partner(s). Opting out should be simple, obvious, perhaps even autonomous in the case of buying "gifts".

    Facebook gives shops the opportunity to legally spam the friends of all their customers. They give it the veneer of "social networking" rather than the normal run-of-the-mill spam by saying "hey, your friend bought this - maybe you'd like it too?" - a bit like Amazon's recommendations? Presumably Facebook charge their partners for this service.

    Oki, the service as a whole is a little "iffy" perhaps, but the fault is not entirely Facebook's (unless you want to lay the blame at their door for providing this service in the first place which appears to be MoveOn's angle).

  17. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "Information is shared with a small selection of a user's trusted network of friends"

    And what does the selection ? And am I supposed to believe that this "selection" cannot be modified by any of all those wonderful "user-generated apps" that are just so much malware waiting for a moron to activate them ?

    My God I am glad I don't use any MySpaceBook of any kind.

  18. Curtis W. Rendon
    Flame

    @MoveOn

    Liberal and fascist simultaneously?

    I think you need to learn to read.

    And on topic, Facebook is a fancy spam optin.

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