Facebook - Evil or just plain dumb?

It is as bad as we suspected - Facebook's Beacon does in fact pass purchasing data from people not registered with Facebook back to them, never mind those who want to opt out. CA outed them, and Facebook eventually replied that it was so. And it is still so - according to CA:

At the present, continuing testing of the Beacon affiliate sites kongregate.com and epicurious.com reveals no change in its operation. We still observe the data being sent when not logged in. If a machine has never been used to access facebook, or has not been logged in with "remember me" selected, then the affiliate data will be sent, but no facebook ID will accompany it. Otherwise, both a facebook ID and the affiliate data will be sent.

This is pretty dumb because (i) it was going to be found out, (ii) it was going to p*ss people off - especially all those potential new customers - and (iii) in many countries it is illegal and can get them sued, fined or even shut down. At least the Enron guys tried to hide their stuff....

Now, Umair Haque reckons that Facebook is just Evil, and its in the DNA. I disagree - to be Evil you need a modicum of intelligence, but as far as I can see some lethal cocktail of greed, arrogance and inexperience has reduced the corporate IQ to near zero. Why would you risk making your company a pariah in a trust based business, or getting it closed down, or getting the directors sued, or making any major brand run a mile?

Anyway, good to see the Facebook Fanboi's out in force today (though Facebook's own PR is curiously quiet): Read/Write Web is breathtaking:

While some commenters on the CA blog aren't buying it, Facebook's promise that they aren't collecting user data except from those who opt-in to the program essentially puts to bed fears that the company is gathering user behavior data from outside sites without user consent.

Oh, its OK then 'cos Facebook sez so? Right.......

AllFacebook weighs in with:

Will this drama kill Facebook Beacon? I’m not quite sure but what I do know is that bloggers have suddenly become obsessed with the topic. Erick Schonfeld has called Facebook’s policy of sending data from Beacon partners to their site whether you are signed in or not unacceptable. I couldn’t agree more. I have a funny feeling that Beacon is going to get shelved until they can redesign the service.

Sees what is going on but can't grasp the obsession at all - sort of like a Vicar at an orgy

Actually, I don't know what's worse - either they genuinely don't understand that this is serious big boy sh*t (in which case get off the air pronto) or they do but are flying PR aircover - which is evil imho.

This post (rant?) will probably come back to haunt me, but I must make it for the following reason - in allowing their service to suck data in from users who have never been near Facebook, they crossed a far bigger line than just lying to existing users, and they need to be called on that, as do those who would try and protect them. To not do so just keeps the whole sad mess going.

Update - this is typical of the misunderstanding, Donna Bogatin says one should just stop using Facebook. But that doesn't work as (i) there is no guarantee you will be deleted, and (ii) Facebook is getting data from non users anyway. The only way to really avoid this is to avoid Facebook AND all its associated retailers.

(Update...found a list of them here...pity about the New York Times, I actually use that one)

AllPosters.com
Blockbuster
Bluefly.com
Busted Tees
CBS Interactive (CBSSports.com & Dotspotter)
Citysearch
CollegeHumor
echomusic
ExpoTV
Gamefly
Hotwire
iWon
Joost
Kiva
Kongregate
LiveJournal
Live Nation
Mercantila
National Basketball Association
NYTimes.com
Overstock.com
Pronto.com
(RED)
Redlight
SeamlessWeb
Sony Online Entertainment LLC
Sony Pictures
STA Travel
The Knot
TripAdvisor
Travel Ticker
Travelocity
TypePad
viagogo
Vox
Yelp
WeddingChannel.com
Zappos.com

Oh...and for anyone who doesn't know this, here is how you block Beacon:

- Download the Firefox extension BlockSite
- Go to the BlockSite options and select “Add”
- Enter http://*facebook.com/beacon/*
- Click Ok, then click OK again

Bad news for IE7 users, there is nothing similar...$240m and all that