The Gong Show

There’s been much discussion about the exchange over Facebook Beacon privacy issues and MoveOn.org’s stance on the issue. First off, kudos to @caroliiine for great coverage on the subject coverage.

I don’t want to be a broken record here; I want to talk about this is an end-user. I had my first “Beacon-ing” yesterday when I bought tickets for my family to go see No Country for Old Men. I used Fandango, and upon hitting the final page of checkout (the print-your-ticket page), a little toast popped up in the bottom right corner of my browser that told me that Facebook was going to tell all my friends I had just bought tix on Fandango to see No Country of Old Men. They gave me the option to opt-out. But, since I wasn’t really sure what was going on in the first place, I didn’t know what I was opting in or out of…

Overall, I didn’t get any end-user benefit by Facebook broadcasting my Fandango purchase. I didn’t really want to spam my friends that I was going to see No Country for Old Men. More importantly, I didn’t want to advertise for Fandango in the process. I don’t like Fandango; and I’m not a fan of using a online broker to buy a movie ticket, but in New York it’s a necessary evil.

So, as a user, I think this feature should be opt-in by default, not opt-out. I think MoveOn’s getting a little carried away (don’t think have an election to worry about?), but guts of their opinion is correct:

“The bottom line,” MoveOn spokesman Adam Green said in an interview with CNET News.com, “is that no Facebook user should have their private purchases online posted for the entire world to see without their explicit opted-in permission.” [from Caroline's post]