Almost all of the Agent Genius contributors have a Facebook account, as do many of our readers. I use Facebook every day and absolutely love it! Today’s article isn’t about what Facebook is for and how it is awesome (that’s been covered) but rather serves as a warning.
You may already know, but a very controversial ad system called “Beacon”has recently been added to your Facebook profile meaning external websites (Amazon, Target, shoes, P0rn, etc) report “stories” (aka supercookies determining your shopping habits) to your Facebook labeled as a “user alert.”
For now, it seems harmless and I’m certainly no Big Brother alarmist, butthis program is now embedded in your Facebook- they’ve automatically enrolled every user to it. Take a second to disable Beacon from publicizing your information in 5 easy steps. I don’t share my Visa bill with clients, bloggers or my parents, so why would I share it through Facebook?
Ines
December 10, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Thank you Lani! you are a super geek in my book!
Jeff Brown
December 10, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Why isn’t Facebook being called the information thieves they are?
What’s the difference between what they’ve done to you, without your permission, and me stealing all your credit card statements?
I guess they’re not actually selling this info, right? Right.
Knowing this, why would I ever join Facebook? What else are they gonna steal from me? And they will, in fact, probably are doing to you as I write this.
Thanks for the heads up, Lani. It’s nice to know who the cat burglar’s are ‘in the neighborhood’.
Benn Rosales
December 10, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Jeff, Facebook has simply joined a long line of information scrapers- hell, google itself is gathering facts about your search habits in order to build a more targeted way to sell ads to attract you. Your habits online are a value, and fetch top dollar.