OK, quick 20 second review:
- Beacon is Facebook’s system that tracks and publishes your online purchases
- Users complained because it was near impossible to avoid, and nobody asked if they wanted Beacon anyway
- Facebook changed Becaon so users could opt-out more easily
SAI is still calling for universal opt-in.
Personally, I think this is one of those “good enough” situations (most of the stuff going on now is probably just “they’re too successful” backlash). The changes to Beacon are going to be good enough for most people. They’re good enough for me, at least for now:
Users must click on “OK” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.
If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.
In other words, it’s not exactly opt-in, but it’s not going to start publishing Beacon purchases without me clicking the OK. That’s good enough.
I know that there are a few people like Fred Wilson, who think Beacon is just fine, and in one sense, I have to agree with him: I’m all for Facebook using the data they have to make a better user experience for myself and my friends.
I think Facebook’s error in all this is communicative, not structural. They didn’t learn their lesson with the Newsfeed, but maybe they’ll learn it this time. Their product is an interactive web service. They are not Apple. They cannot release something pretty and go “take it or don’t,” because there’s such a small barrier to change.
People have this innate sense about hardware that changes are slow, expensive, and essentially impossible to “beta.” By contrast, people look at Facebook, throwing their perceived privacy out the window, and they go “how hard could it have been to ask me?”
The answer, unfortunately for Facebook, is “not that effing hard.”
They need to figure that out.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Paul Chaney 12.03.07 at 2:13 pm
I agree with your statement that Facebook’s error was in communication, not structure. However, I am happy to see what they’ve chosen the path of least resistance in doing what email marketers have considered best practices for years — opt-in. (Even if it’s just “sort of” opt-in. As you say, it’s good enough.)