Facebook will modify, not spike Beacon ads

In the wake of reports that suggested Facebook might be close to axing its controversial Beacon advertising program altogether, a company employee has come out and said that while changes to the application are imminent, it's not going away.

This follows a BusinessWeek report from Wednesday that indicated the program would be tweaked or even eliminated altogether.

Beacon, a component of Facebook's new "Social Ads" initiative, was assailed soon after its debut by leftist activist group MoveOn.org over what the group saw as grave privacy concerns. MoveOn stepped up its rhetoric earlier this week when it brought up evidence suggesting that Facebook had intended to make participation in Beacon easier to opt out of, but had changed the application shortly before its launch.

Now it looks like Facebook will be making some changes.

Facebook customer support representative Paul Janzer responded to the complaints in a post on the message board for the Facebook group that MoveOn had begun as a hub for its anti-Beacon campaign.

"Your feedback has made it clear that Beacon can be kind of confusing," Janzer wrote. To fix this, we are clarifying the way we inform you about a Beacon story before you decide whether or not you'd like to publish it on Facebook. We're also working on making the sites that offer Beacon more visible to you, both on Facebook and through visual cues, so you can determine which specific sites you can publish stories from." In addition, Facebook will offer expanded information about the advertising program on its site.

And in response to some dissatisfied Facebook users who said that Beacon ads had broadcasted their entire holiday shopping lists to their "news feeds," Janzer added the quick apology, "We're sorry if we spoiled some of your holiday gift-giving plans."

[The_Decider]

Beacon isn't confusing

It is wrong.

It is immoral.

It is unethical.

It should be illegal.

[Lucky Lou]

Get some perspective

Beacon is just an addition to a Facebook news feed, it's not
killing children for god's sake.

Yeah, if they publish things without permission it's not good, but
how hard is it to delete something from your feed until they get
the system running optimally? Beacon is brand spanking new,
which means it's not immediately going to be perfect.

People who give a site their Facebook login info and then are
surprised when their activities are published on the news feed
are not really tops in their class either.

[bob1960]

Not enough of a change!

There is really only one change that is needed. The ability to opt-out of it's use. I refuse to use any site or product that does not allow me to turn off features that collect personal information about me. No matter how clear or confusing it is to use or not use. The only honorable and fair way to play it is to allow the feature to be turned off!

[rhsc]

Like it or not...

Like it or not, loads of sites likely have info about you and don't let you turn it off. Any site can see what site you came from before going to theirs. Lots of ad companies put hidden tracking cookies into their ads so they can see where you go. If you're not in control of any router you link to for net access, someone can log and view all your traffic

Sure, the degrees to which each site does this vary tremendously, but keep in mind that you can always be watched by someone else

[Lucky Lou]

They will change it

What you're suggesting was the original plan, and I'm sure it will
be re-implemented. This will all soon go away.

I sound like I'm defending Facebook but it's just trying to get
people to not freak out so much over something that's not that
big a deal, ultimately, and will be corrected because it's the
smart thing to do.

The people on TechCrunch are really freaked as well. It's almost
funny at how the web community are so hair-triggered to
overreact.