A lot of criticism toward social network sites, mainly Facebook, has erupted in the last few weeks. Techcrunch reported on a site that said, "Facebook is bad because they use our data." Well what do you expect? Do you seriously expect this company to NOT use your information when millions of credit card offers, spam email, and telemarketing calls are sent out weekly? Companies mine data to target their audience, and if you think Facebook is bad for doing so, you're an idiot.
Allfacebook reported October 29th that Facebook was planning on launching a Google Adsense killer, or competitor. Business Week basically said if a friend books a vacation on a Facebook partner site, the partner site will have the ability to display that friend's picture as part of an on-line ad to entice other friends to book a vacation. Companies will profit from your face, morons. "Hey look, your drunk ass friend purchased Bill O'Reilly's Culture Warrior from Amazon, so should you!"
November 2nd, Techcrunch released the details regarding a leaked Facebook document. The project, code named Project Beacon, aims to populate Facebook databases with sensitive information in an effort to supply third party companies with details about Facebook users and their habits. Techcrunch continues by giving the example:
"An example may be a purchase of a book or DVD from Amazon. Under Beacon, the fact of that purchase will be sent to Facebook and automatically included in the user’s News Feed. The feed information includes the user name, what they did (bought something), what they bought, and where."
How thoughtful. You just purchased your friend's holiday gift which gets conveniently displayed in your news feed, the same news feed they (your friend) has access to!
According to Idea Shower, Firefox users have the ability to somehow block the Facebook beacon. But why go through the trouble of installing an extension and continuing to conduct on-line activities with a company that lacks moral and ethical principles? They're taking your personal information and harvesting it to make money. Now they've teamed up with Microsoft in an advertising deal that ensures... MORE money, for them, not j00.
Did I mention employers can request information from Facebook regarding their employees? That picture in your friend's private profile of you filling up the vaporizer while performing a keg stand isn't as private as you think you dolt.
Word Count: 473
Tags: advertising, marketing, spam, web
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I realize this is an old post but I'm just now coming across it. (there's a lot of good stuff on here!
As a member of myspace and facebook let me just say that if you don't know what you're getting into with ANYTHING on the web, then you probably shouldn't be doing it. As with anything you post (including this one here) you take a risk - expose yourself - and if you can't accept that risk then maybe you should stop being click happy while looking for your long lost best friend from grade school. Anyone reading this post is likely to already understand this concept but i guess some people need a little common sense knock in the head sometimes.
btw - good stuff - i didn't know this particular fact about what's behind facebook. I learned something today
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