Friday, November 30, 2007

No more automatic beacons

Facebook Revamps Beacon Program Amid Protests
by Wendy Davis and Mark Walsh
Facebook capitulated to MoveOn.org protesters late Thursday evening, announcing that it would require users' opt-in consent to the Beacon program. Confronted with growing resistance to its new ad program said it would no longer publish information about users' online purchases without their explicit consent.

Oh look, Facebook is in the news again
MoveOn.Org wins. I heard in any case MoveOn was some movement established by the marketing people at Facebook.
They created a cause in order to create a huge ruckus. Once MoveOn had generated enough swell, they would remove the beacons to demonstrate that Facebook answers the voices of the people.
Clever.
And that's how you use viral and use people.

1 comment:

msondak said...

I really think that facebook should have held their position on this one. being a heavy facebook user, i constantly monitor any changes that they are making. safe to say, they've been right with many of the features that have been added.
to cave to moveon.org, is a mistake. sure public opinion is important, but you cannot sacrifice innovation because of some bad pr.

maybe someone at facebook should hack moveon.org, and show them who is boss.