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Facebook users complain of
new tracking
MATT HARTLEY
Globe
and Mail
Thursday November 22, 2007
If you're doing your holiday shopping online, there's
a chance Facebook knows what you're buying for your friends, and
it's telling them too.
A controversial new advertising strategy from the social networking
website has raised the ire of privacy watchdogs in the United
States after a number of users had their online purchases revealed
to their friends via the site's "news feed" message
board.
The uproar stems from a new advertising program called Facebook
Beacon, which can be used by online retailers to track the spending
habits of Facebook users on their sites. When a Facebook user
makes a purchase, a message is sent to the news feeds of their
friends, telling them what they bought. About 40 companies, including
Overstock.com and movie ticket retailer Fandango, have installed
the free tool.
(Article continues below)
A U.S. public advocacy group, MoveOn.org, has launched a campaign
to force Facebook to change the policy, calling it a "huge
privacy violation."
"People need to trust that when they use the
Internet and sites like Facebook that their privacy will be respected,"
MoveOn spokesman Adam Green said in an interview.
When Facebook users make a purchase at one of the sites using
Beacon, a small box pops up in the corner of their Web browser,
informing them that their data will be shared with Facebook unless
the user clicks "No Thanks." The next time the user
signs into Facebook, a second confirmation notice pops up. If
the user simply ignores the two notices without "opting out"
then consent is inferred.
Users should be allowed to choose whether their information is
shared via the Beacon service, and rather than opting out, users
should have to "opt in" as they do with most other Facebook
applications, Mr. Green said. After being contacted by frustrated
Facebookers on Monday, the group launched a Facebook group called
"Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!" which
already has 6,000 members.
Full
article here.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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