Facebook has had to change its tune regarding the “Beacon” application.

Unless instructed otherwise, the participating sites alerted Facebook, which then notified a user’s friends within the social network about items that had been bought or products that had been reviewed.

So, if you bought someone a gift on Overstock or Blockbuster, that information was posted to your Facebook news feed, giving away the secret. Oops.

This kind of tracking technology becomes interesting when you take into account things like the Feds subpoenaing Amazon.com for purchase histories. While Amazon and other online bookstores, libraries, etc. may work hard to protect your privacy and first amendment rights, a few website cookies and a financial incentive can quickly cause your privacy to disappear.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 10:18 am by Peter Hesse and is filed under privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.