November 27, 2007 | Tuesday
Facebook Beacon provokes user backlash
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing |Online Sales
Just as news emerges that EU regulators consider targeted advertising a “very hot topic” for 2008, Facebook is being buried under a hailstorm of criticism for its approach to targeted ads.
Facebook Beacon lets third-party partners, such as e-commerce sites, insert a cookie into a Facebook user’s browser. This cookie then allows data (in the case of e-commerce sites, purchase information) to be transferred to Facebook. Next thing you know, your purchases and other activities are being broadcast into your “friends’” news feeds. (Are you really friends - rather than friendly acquaintances or near-strangers - with everyone in your Facebook friends list? If so, you are a rarity.) Ethan Zuckerman has screenshots and a deeper explanation of how Beacon works.
The implications of this are considerable, and Facebook Beacon has not got off on the right foot by creeping out influencers such as Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li with its covert activity.
The biggest problem is the lack of transparency. Facebook is right in that I would really like to have some things that I do on third party sites to conveniently appear in newsfeed, e.g. events I’m attending from Evite or eBay/craigslist listings so that my friends know about them. That’s the promise of Beacon. But I need to be in control and not get blindsided as I did in the example above. I was seriously wigged out, but wouldn’t have been if Overstock had simply told me that they were inserting a Facebook Beacon and given me the opportunity at that time to opt-in to Beacon.
...There’s a fine line that gets crossed when behavior data slips from being a convenience to being Big Brother. This is one of those times.
Dave Winer - the techie who pioneered RSS, podcasting and other tools - goes further than Li and suggests improvements to Facebook Beacon which would make it truly valuable to users.
[I]f they’re going to disclose that I bought a Slingbox, there ought to be a way for me to attach to that reference a diary of my experiences with the product. The link shouldn’t be without risk to the vendor, it should carry information that’s useful to other potential purchasers.
To say that I bought a ticket on American Airlines to fly from New York to San Francisco via Dallas should allow me to add that I missed my connection because the first flight was delayed, and AA refused to cover my hotel expense. Otherwise, of what value is this to the user, and why shouldn’t we switch to another network that gives us the ability to communicate about products. Or do they give us that ability?
As Ethan Zuckerman says, the attraction of Beacon to advertisers is clear, strong, and holds the promise of a holy grail. But if users revolt, it could come back to bite - hard - not just Facebook, but the companies advertising via Beacon. His conclusion:
Pardon me while I switch all my embarrasing purchasing behavior over to another browser that doesn’t know anything about my social networking sites.
In the words of Techcrunch’s Mike Arrington, the Facebook privacy issue won’t die.
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