Commentary

Just An Online Minute... Beacon Fuels Privacy Gripes

As predicted, Facebook's two-week-old "Beacon" program, which publicizes users' purchases at e-commerce sites to their friends, is already drawing privacy complaints.

Tuesday, MoveOn.org launched a protest by creating a new Facebook group, "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" By Wednesday morning, the group had drawn almost 5,000 Facebook members. Move On also is asking members to sign an online petition demanding that the site not pass along information about members' purchases without their "explicit permission."

Currently, Facebook allows users to opt out of participating in its Beacon program. But Move On -- and other advocates -- have good reason for arguing that opt-outs don't protect people's privacy nearly as well as requiring them to opt in would.

Facebook's official position is that the information is only sent to the users' "friends" and that users can always elect not to share it.

But the reality is, many people don't read the fine print when they shop online -- especially when they're at sites they've used for years, like movie ticketer Fandango. Users, even sophisticated ones who have long made online purchases, don't understand the consequences of inertia: they don't realize that taking no action means that their Facebook friends will be notified of their purchases.

But the Facebook executives who thought up this program clearly understood about inertia. They certainly realized that they'd get higher participation -- and presumably higher ad revenue -- by making the program opt-out rather than opt-in. But in the long term, alienating enough users will leave the company without either members or ad revenue

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