Facebook drops controversial 'opt-out' ads... no means yes?

Facebook, the social networking website, has been forced into adramatic climbdown over a new advertising system after users in Americaexpressed privacy concerns.

Morethan 55,000 people signed an online petition calling on the site towithdraw the Beacon service, which automatically records onlinespending habits.
The system exploits the power of "word of mouth" marketing. Onlineretailers can embed the Beacon code into their websites so that whenFacebook users visit sites to buy products or services, details appearin an individual's Facebook news feed, which can then be viewed by allthe user's Facebook friends. In return for feeding the data back toFacebook, the other websites get a free advertisement for theirservices.
Unlike most Facebook applications, for which users "opt in", Beaconwas set up to work automatically unless account-holders clicked on asmall pop-up box asking them to opt-out of disclosing information.
Many users did not know this and were shocked to see recentpurchases appearing on their Facebook profile. It led to accusationsthat the site was ruining Christmas by publicising details of gifts totheir likely recipients. One user, Sean Lane from Boston, told TheWashington Post that he had his festivities spoiled when Beacon sent analert to his wife. It said: "Sean Lane bought 14k white gold 1/5 ctdiamond eternity flower ring from Overstock.com." The message even hada web link to the Overstock site which revealed that the ring was soldat half-price. In response, Overstock abandoned the Beacon service.
Following the bad press, Facebook told its 55 million users onThursday that it was backing down over the scheme. It is giving users"more control" over the Beacon stories published on their news feeds,and they will have to approve Beacon alerts individually before theyappear on their profiles. "We recognise that users need to clearlyunderstand Beacon before they have a story published," Facebook said."We will continue to refine this approach to give users choice."
The outcome will disappoint Facebook's 23-year-old founder, MarkZuckerberg, and his advertising team. They saw Beacon as a litmus testto gauge ways of making money out of the site. The U-turn is also avictory for the left-wing US civil rights group MoveOn, which led theanti-Beacon protests. Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn, welcomed themove to make Beacon an opt-in service but said the site should gofurther to protect people's privacy. "Before, if you ignored theirwarning, they assumed they had your permission," he said. "If Facebookwere to implement a policy whereby no private purchases on otherwebsites were displayed publicly on Facebook without a user's explicitpermission, that would be a step in the right direction."
Facebook members said they were delighted by their successful showof strength. "This is a pretty powerful feeling," wrote Mr Lane."Honestly I didn't think that people could make changes like thisthrough civil action. I am very proud to be a part of this!"

Maybe Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has so far declined to talk to Robert Scoble -- real, fake, or otherwise-- and other bloggers for a simple reason. He knows the vast majorityof Facebook users, still mostly high school and college kids, don't know and don't care about Facebook Beacon. That's what the above poll indicates. It's not the only evidence.

Bloggerslike to compare the Beacon scandal to the mess Facebook made when itclumsily introduced its news feed last year. But let's be clear. Theuser revolts Facebook witnessed in September 2006 were on an entirelydifferent scale -- as in, they were much, much larger.
The day after Facebook announced the news feed, 587,715 members joined a protest group called "Students against Facebook News Feed."Keep in mind, Facebook only had 9 million members at that point. Thatmeans nearly 7 percent of all Facebook members joined the group in oneday.
Compare that to the protest groupMoveOn.org launched on November 20. Two weeks later, only 70,000members have joined. That's only 0.1 percent of Facebook's 57 millionactive users protesting the product.

People say the craziest things to New York Times reporters. In an attempt to explain that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn't, you know, lying when he implied to NYT staffer Louise Storythat Facebook's Beacon ads wouldn't report on users' purchases andother activities unless they opted in to the system, "Matt Hicks, aFacebook spokesman, said Mr.Zuckerberg had meant that users would be given the opportunity to optout of having information sent out by Beacon, and the company hadassumed that anyone who didn't say no meant yes." As Story reports,Coke is having the same "Huh?" reaction, and has withdrawn from earlyparticipation in Beacon ads. I confess: I'm biased. I went to MIT, sowhenever a Harvard man like Zuckerberg opens his mouth, I startlistening for the bullshit. I wish I were wrong more often.