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Beacon concerns, like News Feed concerns of a year ago, will fade
November 21st, 2007
| By Justin Smith | 17 Comments » |
This week there has been a lot of hoopla in the press regarding the privacy implications of Facebook’s new Beacon program.
Beacon is a way for businesses to let their customers “share the actions they take on your website with their Facebook friends.” In other words, it’s a new way for Facebook users to log and broadcast their outside-of-Facebook online activity inside Facebook.
The chief privacy concern raised by MoveOn is that Beacon is opt-out, not opt-in. (Dave McClure walks through the user experience for those who haven’t seen it themselves.)
However, as many will remember from the days of yore (September 2006), similar privacy concerns were raised when Facebook turned on the News Feed itself for the first time. There was even a group called Students Against the Facebook News Feed that grew to 750,000 members (about 100 times the number currently in the group petitioning against Beacon).
Nevertheless, a funny thing happened on the way to the protest: everyone realized how valuable the News Feed was and stopped complaining. And the same thing is going to happen this time around for the same reason.
The bottom line is most people want to be in their friends’ attention stream. Whether that is offline or on Facebook or off Facebook, people want their real friends to know what is going on in their lives. Because most people have built their Facebook friend network to accurately reflect their “real life” friend network, most people will not have a problem sharing some new types of activities (that happen to occur off Facebook.com) with their friends. Instead, they’ll probably like it a lot, and find it a valuable addition to both their News Feed and their own Mini Feeds.
Personally, I’m glad MoveOn is making a stink about Beacon; activists play an important role in any social system – curtailing abuse. However, I think they will find that most Facebook users don’t share their level of concern.
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November 21st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
exactly.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
I think you’re right, Justin, but I think people will want some additional, transparent control over the system. If they don’t find out about it until AFTER an item gets shared, that’s kinda creepy and unnecessary. People can turn off the feed or edit which items appear in their news feeds. Beacon needs to have that same flexibility and ease of use.
The concern I’ve seen expressed is that Beacon doesn’t appear to be upfront with its privacy controls. Most opponents have noted that it’s built to discourage such control. That seems like a departure for Facebook.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:30 pm
[...] Predictably enough, Facebook’s new advertising initiative known as Beacon — the one that follows you around even when you’re outside Facebook and watches what you’re buying on partner websites — has sparked a small frenzy of consternation about privacy, with Charlene Li’s post about her suddenly public shopping spree at Overstock heading the pack. I’m going to side with Justin Smith of Inside Facebook on this one. I think this is pretty much a carbon copy of what happened with the news feed. [...]
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:31 am
[...] issues — Word-of-mouth marketing or misplaced advertising? — Why Matthew Ingram and Justin Smith are wrong on the Beacon [...]
November 22nd, 2007 at 12:44 am
Justin,
I just left a comment on Matthew Ingram’s blog on the same topic. I believe the furore over news feed, did not subside until changes were made and Mark actually apologized | http://tinyurl.com/y3fedz. Also, in this case, collecting information outside of Facebook may actually concern a few more people than the millions of users within Facebook.
Disclosure: I’m the community evangelist at LinkedIn and a Facebook user as well
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:28 am
I do think that the uproar over this is a bit over the top, however Mario’s example of what had to happen to the news feeds before they became acceptable is spot on. Much like then, I suspect people won’t mind Beacon once some basic controls are in place. In particular, Facebook needs to move its control over the posting / non-posting of items to its own website. As Charlene Li at Forrester/Groundswell found, when controls rely on vendors, Facebook just can’t guarantee that the level of user approval they’re aiming for will be applied.
When you consider what people can buy online these days, I can see a lot of scope for people wanting to opt out, even if only from time to time. For example, if my book purchases fed right into my reading list on facebook, that’d be fine, right until I ordered books as Christmas presents.
All that’s needed is some granulatity of controls, and the controls need to be on Facebook, not the vendor sites.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
[...] Inside Facebook – Beacon concerns, like News Feed concerns of a year ago, will fade “The bottom line is most people want to be in their friends’ attention stream. Whether that is offline or on Facebook or off Facebook, people want their real friends to know what is going on in their lives.” True. (tags: socialnetworking facebook beacon lifestreaming socialgraph friends ambientintimacy productnarratives news attention spam) [...]
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
[...] not sure what will. We are witnessing a test of individuals’ privacy limits and there are a few people that (as I have interpreted) are telling others to basically sit down and shut up. This will blow [...]
November 24th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
[...] Smith of Inside Facebook sees this as a rehash of an earlier bump in the road that Facebook had to deal with. That [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 2:43 am
[...] set your controls to your preference or quit facebook. I choose the first option. This will most likely blow over in a short time and people will focus on important things like what to buy for [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 6:45 am
The reason News Feed concerns “faded”, is that Facebook changed their policy, allowing you to prevent your info from showing on News Feeds. Mark Zuckerberg said “Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. [...] This may sound silly, but I want to thank all of you who have written in and created groups and protested.”
Moreover, News Feeds themselves were a relatively minor issue. Only actions you took on Facebook would be published. With Beacon, actions you take anywhere can be published, unless you opt out explicitly (within the few seconds the box is on screen), for every site.
November 29th, 2007 at 1:41 am
[...] Beacon concerns, like News Feed concerns of a year ago, will fade by Justin Smith [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Justin
I have to disagree with you here. Beacon isn’t within the confines of Facebook. It is out there on the web and it can strike anytime.
Facebook and the retailers have partnered – without our consent – to send info to our friends and colleagues. Did we say they could join this party? No. And it is up to us to stop it. Why not make it opt-in? Then all those who you say won’t mind can show the thumbs up.
My guess is that people want control of the info they create. Period.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:54 am
There is a big difference between the mini feed controversy and the current hoopla over Beacon. Whereas the mini feed (which in my opinion is also creepy) exists primarily to share information which is mainly in the interest of the user to be shared, Beacon shares information which is entirely in the interest of marketing companies to be shared.
This is tremendous power. Abusing it to make a quick buck is distasteful and dangerous.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:48 am
[...] in my opinion, naively, thought that this would blow over while others still praise the company in these efforts, perhaps their enthusiasm for Facebook [...]
December 5th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
[...] I still believe that very few people outside the Techmeme Radius are likely to ever have any significant level of concern about Beacon. [...]
August 26th, 2009 at 11:36 am
[...] Inside Facebook – Beacon concerns, like News Feed concerns of a year ago, will fade “The bottom line is most people want to be in their friends’ attention stream. Whether that is offline or on Facebook or off Facebook, people want their real friends to know what is going on in their lives.” True. (tags: socialnetworking facebook beacon lifestreaming socialgraph friends ambientintimacy productnarratives news attention spam) [...]