Comments on: Blocking Beacon

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:58:46 +0000

From what I’ve read, you only have to be logged in to Facebook. Presumably the javascript does the rest.

By: Calum Leslie

Calum Leslie — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 22:21:36 +0000

Surely you have to inform the site that you have Facebook?

Also at Amazon you can alter your view/purchase history manually so that you don’t spoil people’s gifts, although I’m not entirely sure how.

By: Toxic

Toxic — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 11:12:51 +0000

There are times when being anti-social has advantages now where’s that emporium?

By: Toms View of the World

Toms View of the World — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:32:31 +0000

The Facebook Beacon (and why it’s a bad idea)…

Facebook have introduced a new data harvesting system to assist in targetting advertising to it’s users, using 3rd party websites to gather data on their behalf.
With the help of some clever javascript, and some co-operative 3rd party websites …

By: Tom M

Tom M — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 08:10:22 +0000

I’ve been having a converstaion with Facebook support (as have quite a few others from the various posts I’m reading on the subject - beacon appears to be faily unpopular amongst people who care about privacy.)

Their responses have not yet been particularly encouraging. My biggest concern is that although I can block a site *once that site has tried to post to my account* - I can’t just “turn off the feature entirely” unlike most other parts of facebook - I can turn off other things, I have to opt-in (or not) to all those applications (a few of which I do opt in to - most of which I don’t) - I should be able to completely opt out of having other sites update my newsfeed.

As you say, the sites are still sharing the data with facebook - In individual cases, check their privacy policy - if they say they won’t share information on your use of their site, ask them why they are - and vote with your feet - boycott sites which pass details to facebook, use the firefox plugin to block beacon and above all else *tell facebook* that you’re doing this - if they start seeing large user backlashes, they’ll likely do something about it.