The NY Times has published a column in its Bits Blog that summarizes the evolution of Facebook’s Beacon advertising program.
I think that it is more revealing than focusing on the backlash or petitions to actually examine the program itself, along with the supposed improvements made by Facebook along the way. The column does a good job at pointing out the small tweaks that seem to address raised concerns, while essentially presenting the same thing again, but with more labels.
It becomes the user’s responsibility to be ever watchful for Facebook’s unorthodox info harvesting. A better approach would have been a way to opt-in instead of having to constantly opt-out. There is currently no way to globally say “no thanks” and be done with it, either.
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