I am a bit late to the Facebook Privacy Pity Party, but I’ve been galvanized into action. This is an issue that the PR/social media bloggers need to spend more time sussing out.

When the Facebook Beacon system (“social ads”) was announced, Mark Zuckerberg said, “It isn’t an ad system based on pushing messages out. It’s based on getting into the conversations that already happen between people.”

This is important stuff.  But it’s also hard to figure out.

According to Pollara Strategic Insights (as quoted in the Globe and Mail):

26% of business and marketing leaders say they are less familiar with social media marketing than their own customers… (yet this approach is) becoming more important than traditional mass media… 85% said these forums have become an essential component of the communications mix.”

Important!  But hard to figure out.  I think proud young Facebook has yet to get it right.

Using Beacon, for example, advertisers and e-commerce sites can capture and publish your activities to your newsfeed, which in turn advertises your movements to your friends. 

Get it?  Your movements become their advertisements.

As Charlene Li found out, buying a coffee table at Overstock.com is no longer a personal process.  All her Facebook friends now know what she bought, and how much she paid: it was published as part of her newsfeed, without her permission.

“Big deal,” you think.  “It was a coffee table.”

But be sure to read the Comments that accompany Charlene’s post.  THIS ONE in particular.  This poor guy, “Will,” bought his girlfriend an engagement ring at Overstock.com, and soon after:

Imagine my horror when I learned that Overstock had published the details of my purchase (including a link to the item and its price) on my public Facebook newsfeed, as well as notifications to all of my friends. ALL OF MY FRIENDS, including my girlfriend, and all of her friends, etc…

ALL OF THIS WAS WITHOUT MY CONSENT OR KNOWLEDGE.” 

What should have been a life-altering, sweet conversation between two lovebirds became a very public disaster, thanks to Facebook.  (Only Scoble would buy a ring that way!)

There are far smarter people than me discussing these issues, but I think Tony Hung (whom I deeply admire) actually got it wrong on this one.  He suggests that Facebookers are sheep who ultimately won’t care about the data & privacy abuses of the Beacon system.  But I think that when a major news outlet like CNN (or even an aggregator like Google News) catches wind of stories like Will’s, it’s gonna explode – along with Facebook’s current book value.

Starting a conversation that invites others to join in, at their leisure, is okay.  Participating in an ongoing conversation (with transparency) is okay. 

But hijacking a person’s privacy in order to sound informed when entering or starting a conversation is wrong. 

As Danny Sullivan recently said of Facebook’s new advertising system in Advertising Age: “Go. Away.”

UPDATE: This issue continues to smolder.  (And no one smolders like Hugh MacLeod.)  I wonder if Facebook is listening?

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