Move On MoveOn.org, Nothing To See Here

I’ve said plenty in the past about both Facebook and privacy on the internet.

And I think it’s pretty clear from my earlier thoughts how I lean on the current debate about Facebook’s new (but not particularly innovative) Beacon advertising platform, and the whole MoveOn.org uproar, so I’ll keep this relatively brief.

Basically, again, people are crying wolf over a loss of privacy when in actuality all that’s been lost is a bit more of the comforting but dangerous illusion of privacy. Facebook Beacon, which allows partner sites to communicate your actions back to Facebook, differs from existing ad networks in only one real way: rather than sending the exact same information to advertisers in the network, they are sending it back to you, making it visible to people with whom you have chosen to share information about yourself by befriending them. Yes, the advertisers get it, too.

And while this increased visibility of your actions can lead to some humorous but unfortunate outcomes - as in the case of a guy girl whose girlfriend boyfriend found out he she bought her him gloves for Christmas (lame present, yo) - this, like the News Feed before it, does not show any information about you that someone couldn’t already see.

Now, this isn’t to say I disagree with calls for further openness of Facebook’s data, and I do think that Facebook creates mini PR nightmares for itself by making these new “features” opt-out instead of opt-in, but this is yet another case of much ado about nothing. It will blow over soon, to be replaced by the next pseudo-scandal, and that won’t be a problem, because nothing has really changed.

Move On, MoveOn.org. Get back to the war. Last I checked, that was still happening.