Today on the Facebook Blog, Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for the mistakes Facebook made in rolling out Beacon, and announces that the company is "releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely."
This is a clear victory for consumer backlash and protests. MoveOn.org spokesman Adam Green responds to today's development:
"Sites like Facebook are revolutionizing how we communicate with each other and organize around issues together in a 21st century democracy. The big question is: Will corporate advertisers get to write the rules of the Internet or will these new social networks protect our basic rights, like privacy? Facebook's policy change is a big step in the right direction, and we hope it begins an industry-wide trend that puts the basic rights of Internet users ahead of the wish lists of corporate advertisers."
The Center for Digital Democracy, which has filed an FTC complaint against Facebook, is still concerned that Facebook's reaction has not solved their potential privacy problem. Executive Director Jeff Chester reacts to Facebook's news:
"Today's announcement that Facebook users will be able to turn off Beacon, following last week's opt-in changes, is a step in the right direction. But Mr. Zuckerberg isn't truly candid with Facebook users. Beacon is just one aspect of a massive data collection and targeting system put in place by Facebook. It's not really about the company's desire 'to build a simple product?lightweight' that would, as he writes, 'let people share information across sites with their friends.' Mr. Zuckerberg's goal, as he explained on November 6, 2007, was to transform Facebook into 'a completely new way of advertising online.' Facebook has rewired its social network to better serve the data collection interests of marketers who, promised Mr. Zuckerberg, are now 'going to be a part of the conversation'.
"Mr. Zuckerberg can't simply now do a digital "mea culpa" and hope that Facebook's disapproving members, privacy advocates, and government regulators will disappear. Nor should Facebook's brand advertisers permit this statement to diminish the real privacy and security concerns embodied by Facebook's new targeted ad system. CDD will continue to press U.S. and EU regulators to address Facebook's significant privacy problem."
From my perspective, while I applaud this development, Facebook still has many more steps to take before they earn user trust. I for one am still not ready to sign up yet.
The bad news about Facebook's Beacon program, user tracking, and privacy concerns just keeps piling up. Now Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are under fire from consumers, journalists, activist and advocacy groups, and even its own advertising partners.
Today's biggest revelation, reported by PC World, is that "Facebook has confirmed findings of a CA security researcher [Stefan Berteau] that the social-networking site's Beacon ad service is more intrusive and stealthy than previously acknowledged, an admission that contradicts statements made previously by Facebook executives and representatives," including email correspondence between Berteau and Facebook's privacy department, as well as statements made by Facebook vice president Chamath Palihapitiya to The New York Times.
Facebook confirmed Stefan Berteau's specific allegation that Beacon tracks the off-Facebook activties of members even when they are logged out of the social-networking site.
... Read more
Whether or not Facebook kills its much-derided Beacon program, the controversy surrounding intrusive marketing surveillance deserves to flourish.
You remember the old story about the frog placed in a pot of water that was slowly heated up, until it was cooked? When I read the about Facebook's reaction to the anti-Beacon protests, my first impression is that Facebook's concessions are essentially along the lines of, "OK, we turned up the heat a bit too much on this one, so we'll turn it back down a little bit--for now." Are marketers counting on the fact that we'll get used to the warm bath, then the hot tub, calibrating their fine-tuned ability to stop just short of the lobster pot?
CNN.com contributes a story, "Ad targeting improves as Web sites track consumer habits," which covers the Facebook issue among other case studies. Marketers are studying the sensitivity level of consumers to intrusive advertising and adjusting their programs accordingly. For example, CNN.com reports, "Most Web sites and marketers have been shunning the ultimate targeting--ads that greet you by name. Yahoo could easily do that using registration information, but 'I'm not sure people would like that or not,' said Richard Frankel, Yahoo's senior director of product marketing."
The CNN story continues:
"Users' comfort with data profiling has indeed shifted over the years. Google faced criticism when it introduced an e-mail service that paired ads with the words inside private messages. Millions of people now use Gmail with scarcely a blink.... Read moreUsers will eventually embrace the latest tactics, too--and by then, they'll complain about even deeper levels of intimacy yet to be invented, said Tracy Ryan, professor of advertising research at Virginia Commonwealth University
'You want to have enough targeting that a consumer notices the message and pays attention, but you don't want it to be so obvious that they are thinking (there) is targeting,' she said. 'That would be scary.'"
- prev
- 1
- next
