Facebook lights a Beacon for class user generated discontent

From TechCrunch, news of the aftershock of Facebook Beacon:

Facebook’s controversial and widely-disdained Beacon service, which it originally introduced in November, has led to the company behind slapped with another class action lawsuit. The suit alleges that Facebook never sought user approval before collecting personal information, and was also keeping tabs on people who weren’t even signed up for Facebook.

And its not as if they learned from their mistake:

Beacon hasn’t been Facebook’s only privacy misstep. The social network instituted a system earlier this year that added images of a user’s friends to some advertisements, confusing and upsetting many users. Our own $25 million suit against Facebook for the unlawful use of Michael Arrington’s likeness to endorse shoddy products is still pending.

Once could be an unfortunate mistake, twice looks like it may be deliberate and in the DNA of the business, as some allege. We predicted last year that 2008 would be the year that privacy started to bite back, but this is from a very interesting direction (think of it as user-generated discontent ) Coupled with some of the other recent court decisions I think the pendulum is shifting towards the right in the online game..