A lot of light is being shed on Facebook Beacon's privacy issues. MoveOn.org, which started a Facebook group to protest Beacon, has served as a catalyst to draw enough attention to the issue that it's being reported Facebook is going to make changes to the program. Here's some links to relevant posts:
- Facebook Beacon, the Pandora's Box of Marketing
- Facebook backs off tracking user purchases
- Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking
- Facebook to Extinquish the Beacon
Seems to me that Facebook can make all this controversy go away simply by mimicking email marketing industry best practices and providing an "opt-in" rather than an "opt-out" mechanism. That way, nothing I don't want shared gets shared unless I say it's OK to do so. End of story.
Or, maybe not...what do you think?
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