MoveOn Targets Facebook's Controversial Ad Programs
By Fred Stutzman, 11/21/2007 - 11:49am

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MoveOn, the online advocacy group, has turned its sights on Facebook's new advertising program, Beacon. The group is asking Facebook users to sign the following: "Facebook must respect my privacy. They should not tell my friends what I buy on other sites--or let companies use my name to endorse their products--without my explicit permission."

Launched two weeks ago with much Fanfare, Beacon is part of a two-pronged effort by Facebook to "change media", something founder Mark Zuckerberg insists happens "once every hundred years." Working with partners, Facebook's Beacon reports user actions in sites such as Fandango and Epicurious back to the individual's Facebook profile. These actions are then advertised to your friends via your Newsfeed, theoretically influencing your friends. Pundits and users alike fear this is a dangerous erosion of privacy.

MoveOn's petition attacks Facebook's use of user likeness in advertising - that it is inappropriate for Facebook to use our identity for advertising without compensation or our explicit approval. MoveOn is also compiling stories of Beacon flubs, such as when a gift one buys online is reported to the gift's intended recipient.

I've spent some time analyzing Beacon, and came away quite troubled. If you're interested in reading more, here's a post I wrote about privacy implications, and a post exploring just how much information is collected by Beacon. As you might imagine, there's a lot of information being shared, much like with Doubleclick or other analytics programs. Of course, the key difference with Facebook is that the information is tied to your identity, your social network, and your expectations of privacy in the service.

View the petition here.

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MoveOn is exploiting naive Facebook users

Fred,
I am concerned about privacy just as much as anyone else. I also think the Beacon program is annoying but to say it violates privacy is a bit off base considering the numerous options to stop it.

Facebook users do not need MoveOn's help in defending privacy. Facebook users already have Facebook working on protecting privacy and brought changes to how Facebook does news feeds.

What MoveOn is doing is immoral and unethical tactic. Instead of helping people learn to protect their privacy and to complain directly to facebook, they are given links to sign up for MoveOn.org. MoveOn is trying to recruit paranoid ignorant people.

This is not an issue of MoveOn politics but of their highly questionable tactics. People responding to MoveOn's campaign should be wary.

By Freedomfighter at Fri, 11/23/2007 - 5:49pm | login or register to post comments

I agree, to an extent

Freedomfighter, while I wouldn't call this immoral or unethical, I do agree that this is a membership-driving tactic. I covered it because it is interesting to see the third-party advocacy groups taking Facebook on, but I do question the value or potential outcomes.

By Fred Stutzman at Mon, 11/26/2007 - 3:25pm | login or register to post comments

thanks for the respone

Fred,
What MoveOn is doing, is quite unethical although I understand why many may miss it. They are NOT pushing this issue to advance privacy rights.

Any good ecommerce site has a privacy policy AND a third party to dispute privacy issues. Facebook has Truste.org at the link below:

http://www.truste.org/ivalidate.php?url=www.facebook.com&sealid=101

Also note, other privacy organizations did NOT join in this protest. In fact, Scott Rafer quit MoveOn over this very campaign. See his site below:

http://rafer.wirelessink.com/

The whole use of the petition, through facebook, lacks integrity and is the very sort of thing which causes people to leave political organizations. I think many political activists miss this point because the political process is so corrupt in the first place.

By Freedomfighter at Mon, 11/26/2007 - 10:39pm | login or register to post comments

Ethics

Freedomfighter, Again I disagree. MoveOn clearly has multiple agendas, but we deceive ourselves if we think that other NGO/Advocacy/Etc. groups are singular in purpose. Perhaps all organizations are non-ethical, but I see MoveOn as acting within norms.

That said, we must understand the role of privacy policies not as discourse between companies and users, but actually as devices that prevent discourse. What agency does a Facebook user have? We kid ourselves if we think these policies are meaningful for anything other than shutting down communication.

By Fred Stutzman at Sat, 12/01/2007 - 11:36pm | login or register to post comments



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