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Facebook users, are you paying attention? · by Rafi Kam
The topic of Facebook’s new Beacon advertising system and the rabbit hole it leads to as far as our privacy is concerned has finally moved from my peripheral vision to the thinking part of my brain.
By exchanging notes with other sites on your actions and identity via shared cookies, Facebook is breaking a sacred expectation of privacy and user anonymity that legitimate web sites have been operating under for years. Cookies are supposed to be private to the site they came from. Ad-tracking sites like Doubleclick already use cookies to track you across sites but at least it’s understood that they’re scuzzy and people aren’t rushing in droves to tell Doubleclick everything about their lives, recruiting their friends and whatnot.
Broadcasting your actions to your “friends” may be what gets the protesters up in arms which works out too well for Facebook… they can solve that site functionality and shut people up. But it’s every bit as bad that Facebook and their partners know what you did when you weren’t even on their sites.
You may want to block Beacon (you can’t globally in Facebook but there’s a Firefox plugin that will let you), you may want to disable your account as I just did (you know why? cuz fuck them, that’s why), or hey you may choose to ignore any of this.
In any case, you should be aware of what you’re giving up. And consider the fact that your community is a community of advertisers – Facebook’s actual customers.
You’re giving those businesses and Facebook a hell of a lot (more than you might realize) without any reciprocity.
Check some links on the subject:
25 Hours a Day – Some Thoughts On The Facebook Beacon
Deconstructing Facebook Beacon Javascript
Calcanis: The wonderful horrible life of facebook users and their data
Doc Searls – Making our own rules II
Umair – Facebook’s evil is in its DNA
Facebook changes the norms for web purchasing and privacy
Dave Winer – I Want Control Of My Data
Facebook Privacy versus cross-context aggregation
Comments for "Facebook users, are you paying attention?"
By the way, your ISP actively sells your browsing activity to analytics and marketing firms like Quantcast and Compete.com. And they’ll cough up all your records to the cops for any reason they ask for it.
The standards on net privacy are going in the wrong direction. We need some government intervention.
— Hashim Warren Nov 28, 06:29 PM
cue “cell therapy”
— enigmatik Nov 28, 09:56 PM
All the dominant social networking sites have major flaws. MySpace is infected with all kinds of spyware and adware, malware even. After 20 minutes of catching up with friends on there, my anti-spyware catches like 25 problems.
— Jay B Nov 28, 09:59 PM
“you know why? cuz fuck them, that’s why”
classic.
— khal Nov 29, 09:22 AM
agree with #4
— me Nov 29, 04:06 PM
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1575455/20071130/index.jhtml
— Enigmatik Nov 30, 05:23 PM
Yeah but see this post’s 3rd paragraph and this for why today’s news is totally expected and still problematic.
— rafi Nov 30, 05:50 PM
Just makes me glad I never became a “Face” on Facebook in the first place. For annoying social networking I’ll stick with MySpace.
— DJ Flash Dec 2, 02:45 AM
smh privacy’s over rated
http://audiblecrack.blogspot.com/
— t Dec 2, 04:33 PM
t,
really such a foolish comment barely deserves responding to but i will respond because your remark implicitly supports bullshit like the patriot act, illegal search and seizure, spying on citizens and the desires of corporations taking priority over the rights of individuals.
the issue called privacy can also be called control. there’s nothing wrong with choosing to make public info. i do plenty of that myself.
but you should have control of your identity, a right to your own data and the ability to trust that the way its used will not change without your approval.
the even worse news today is that facebook still receives data from partner sites even for users who have opted out of beacon for those partners !
sure, everyone who lives online gives up privacy on some level. but that doesnt make it overrated.
companies acting honestly = not overrated. individuals having rights and protection = not overrated.
— rafi Dec 3, 05:06 PM