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  • SUNDAY NOVEMBER 25 2007 4:00 AM

MoveOn.org Launches Anti-Facebook Campaign

Submitted by Rahodeb

Edited by Rahodeb

Tags: Facebook, MoveOn.org, online privacy



"Why the Hell Was My Whole Holiday Shopping List Published in My Facebook News Feed?" That's what some Facebook users have been wondering ever since the site's new "social advertising strategy" started publishing information about members' activity on third-party partner sites to their friends' "News Feeds." In other words, Facebook users who make online purchases are finding that many of those transactions are showing up for everyone to see. Kind of sucks for people making "personal" purchases, or trying to surprise friends and family with holiday gifts.

Why does MoveOn.org care? They say that the program -- called "Beacon" -- is a major violation of privacy.

"The bottom line," MoveOn spokesman Adam Green said in an interview with CNET News.com, "is that no Facebook user should have their private purchases online posted for the entire world to see without their explicit opted-in permission."

It's true that Beacon advertisements are limited to the news feeds of the people on a user's friends list, but Green said that doesn't make a difference. He cited Facebook user testimonials that ranged from members who said their entire Christmas lists had been published on their News Feeds (spoiling many a surprise in the process) to student activists who were concerned that sensitive purchases might show up and result in serious consequences--"If a college kid rents Brokeback Mountain and some homophobic person on his campus sees that, that could be a real problem," he explained.

Beacon is not mandatory, and Facebook users can opt out, but that choice is well-hidden and only temporarily visible. MoveOn.org insists that Facebook needs to do a better job of informing and protecting their users. Facebook, of course, claims that MoveOn.org is misrepresenting the site feature. In response to MoveOn's attack, Facebook offered a statement saying that they had it all wrong.

"We encourage feedback from our users on new products," the Facebook statement read, "but in this case, the MoveOn.org-led group misrepresents how Facebook Beacon works. Beacon gives users an easy way to share relevant information from other sites with their friends on Facebook."

Facebook's statement stressed that because this information is not public, it isn't an invasion of privacy. "Information is shared with a small selection of a user's trusted network of friends, not publicly on the Web or with all Facebook users," the statement explained. "Users also are given multiple ways to choose not to share information from a participating site, both on that site and on Facebook."

You think the MoveOn gang bought that weak excuse? Everyone knows that many of the "friends" listed on social networking site profiles aren't the real deal. Not only that, but who even wants their true friends to have access to all of their purchases? I don't need my good friends or classmates to know that I got myself a copy of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: A Physician Tells You What You Need to Know. This should be the sort of thing that users choose to turn "on" instead of "off," and Facebook has a responsibility to make their users aware of new features like this before they go into effect.

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Comments
Formus

Formus

Milwaukee, WI
May 2007

NOV 25, 2007 06:55 PM

Time for me to change my settings.

scylis

scylis

USA
November 2004

NOV 25, 2007 09:00 PM

shit! why couldn't you have posted this before i bought all the parts i'm going to build my dirty bomb with?!?

Postblank

Postblank

New Brunswick, NJ
June 2004

NOV 25, 2007 09:16 PM

scylis said:
shit! why couldn't you have posted this before i bought all the parts i'm going to build my dirty bomb with?!?



Reported.

zenFish

zenFish

Vancouver, BC
August 2004

NOV 25, 2007 09:19 PM

I'm still not in the loop of how facebook manages to grep this information... do you have to enter in anything to the program? or does it just stif through the cookies on your hard drive?

punk

punk

Phoenix, AZ
January 2004

NOV 25, 2007 09:21 PM

They have to be matching name/address combinations. An easy way to avoid a match-up would be to remove any information from your profile that they could use to combine your name with another piece of information.

Use a different e-mail address on Facebook than you do when ordering stuff online, don't have your address listed in Facebook, phone number, etc.

Facebook needs to drop this system period, but until they do (if they do), there are ways that people can avoid having their shopping habits displayed to their friends.

asbestosman

asbestosman

Australia
October 2005

NOV 25, 2007 10:06 PM

I especially love this bit of their privacy policy:

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.



Of course, grossly exaggerated are the rumours of links between Facebook and "disbanded" guv'ment agencies that exist to collect as much information on citizens as possible.

ARRR!!!

punk

punk

Phoenix, AZ
January 2004

NOV 25, 2007 10:12 PM

asbestosman said:
I especially love this bit of their privacy policy:

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.



Of course, grossly exaggerated are the rumours of links between Facebook and "disbanded" guv'ment agencies that exist to collect as much information on citizens as possible.

ARRR!!!



Precisely why they know only my name, e-mail address, and where I went to school: stuff that's required to join. The rest, they can stuff it.

NewSpectre

NewSpectre

Baltimore, MD
March 2005

NOV 26, 2007 12:20 AM

MoveOn.org can stuff their self righteous heads up their fat asses.

Of the 5 groups of people in the world I despise the most, they're close to the top.

edit: and it took me all of 2 clicks to turn this feature off. So you can take your "Beacon is not mandatory, and Facebook users can opt out, but that choice is well-hidden and only temporarily visible" and shove it. Maybe you should learn how to read.

Elichrusos

Elichrusos

I'm lost
October 2007

NOV 26, 2007 12:23 AM

SpectreInTheUK said:
MoveOn.org can stuff their self righteous heads up their fat asses.

Of the 5 groups of people in the world I despise the most, they're close to the top.



Did you have anything to say about the article?

BlastProcessing

BlastProcessing

USA
OLD SKOOL

NOV 26, 2007 12:33 AM

SpectreInTheUK said:
MoveOn.org can stuff their self righteous heads up their fat asses.

Of the 5 groups of people in the world I despise the most, they're close to the top.

edit: and it took me all of 2 clicks to turn this feature off. So you can take your "Beacon is not mandatory, and Facebook users can opt out, but that choice is well-hidden and only temporarily visible" and shove it. Maybe you should learn how to read.



Yeah, I hear MoveOn made Lakenheath, England into a nightmarish hellscape where the living envy the dead.

TAFKASP

TAFKASP

Oakland, CA
June 2003

NOV 26, 2007 12:50 AM

SpectreInTheUK said:
MoveOn.org can stuff their self righteous heads up their fat asses.

Of the 5 groups of people in the world I despise the most, they're close to the top.



Jesus Christ, man. Eat some bran. Get some fiber into your diet, posthaste.

It sounds like you're wound up a little too tightly over this particular organization. What did they do to you? Is it worth causing yourself a stroke over them?

NewSpectre

NewSpectre

Baltimore, MD
March 2005

NOV 26, 2007 01:25 AM

Sorry, but when I pass a crowd of people on the way to work, several of them wearing MoveOn.org shirts, carrying signs that call me a baby killer, among other things, I tend to have a less than favorable outlook on them.


This is just ANOTHER example of Michael Moore's pet group of loser protesters meddling in other peoples business for the sake of publicity.

freshprncebelair

freshprncebelair

Ellicott City, MD
June 2004

NOV 26, 2007 06:11 AM

punk said:
Facebook needs to drop this system period, but until they do (if they do), there are ways that people can avoid having their shopping habits displayed to their friends.



They aren't going to be dropping this anytime soon.

I recently did a demo for a CEO of a Fortune 500 company on what could be done with Facebook as far as advertising/tracking, and they were nearly shitting their pants at the possibilities. They are going to pour a lot of money into a project on the FB. And we all know, when there is money to be had, it is unlikely they will stop.

emotedcreations

emotedcreations

Germany
July 2006

NOV 26, 2007 06:22 AM

I'm glad I just deleted my Face book account. They should have left it the way it was three years ago. Now it just, well, sucks.

LEtranger

Letranger

Brooklyn, NY
September 2005

NOV 26, 2007 07:12 AM

SpectreInTheUK said:
Sorry, but when I pass a crowd of people on the way to work, several of them wearing MoveOn.org shirts, carrying signs that call me a baby killer, among other things, I tend to have a less than favorable outlook on them.




but by you lumping everyone who supports moveon with those protesters arent you doing the same thing as people who assume all soldiers are baby killers?

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