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The Final Farewell of Facebook Beacon

Jordan McCollum — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:48:41 +0000

As announced last month, Facebook is finally ending its unpopular advertising program, Beacon, through a court settlement. The class action lawsuit settlement only needed judicial approval to make it final. And last week we they got that preliminary approval. Once the deal is good and done, Facebook will officially end Beacon, and pay $9.5M in damages, according to Read Write Web.

Two-thirds of the fine would go toward setting up a non-profit foundation for ~~therapy for people who had surprises ruined by Beacon~~ “projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety and security.” The remaining $3+ M would go to the 19 plaintiffs, who could expect anywhere from $1000 to $15,000 a piece, according to MediaPost, and their lawyers (who could expect $2.7M or more). Hm. Once again, cui bono?

The suit claimed that Beacon’s opt-out option was “inadequate, misleading and deceptive.” Facebook reformed the program to be opt-in, and apologized. Technically, it still exists today, but once this settlement is finalized, the program will end once and for all—and Facebook will be absolved of liability in any other Beacon-based lawsuits.

Hm. Once again, cui bono? Facebook could get out of the suit against them and Blockbuster, and any others, for a cool $9.5M. Sounds like a good deal. Meanwhile, David Johnson of the Digital Media Lawyer Blog says, “Facebook is already required by law to promote the online privacy, safety and security of its users’ information,” and they get to funnel most of the settlement money back into those efforts, through a non-profit.

What do you think? Should the plaintiffs have held out for a better deal for them or is this what lawyers call “cy pres“—as near as possible to an equitable solution, since they can’t place a dollar value on the plaintiffs’ losses?

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Facebook Gives Up On Beacon

Jordan McCollum — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:35:45 +0000

Announced in November 2007, Facebook’s Beacon integrated advertising and profiles on the popular social network. It initially looked like a great way for Facebook to monetize—but users saw the implementation, where their activities on other sites were broadcast on FB without their consent, as highly invasive. Facebook reformed the program to be opt-in, and apologized. And now, Facebook is ending Beacon altogether.

Mashable reports (emphasis added):

This week Facebook said that it has settled a class-action lawsuit against the product, agreed to shut it down completely, and will establish a $9.5 million “settlement fund” to fund initiatives related to online privacy.

The suit, filed just over a year ago, alleged that Facebook had invaded its users’ privacy, collecting information about them (and others) from around the Internet without their consent. They also said the opt-out was too difficult, since you had to visit each partner site (of which there were 44) to opt out. (However, there was a privacy control to turn the feature off completely).

The settlement must still be approved by the court, in this case, the US District Court of Northern California.

As Mashable points out, however, Beacon’s legacy will live on. By creating partnerships with and data collection from third-party sites, it paved the way for Facebook Connect, which may actually be the biggest feature that added to the site’s global growth.

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What Does Everyone Think About Facebook Connect?

Chris Crum — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:17:29 +0000

Facebook Connect was announced back in May and has just recently begun to see the light of day. Since the announcement, the obligatory privacy concerns have been raised, but Facebook hoping to nip that in the bud has made it very clear that users can choose whether or not they wish to share information, a feature that was also available with the resurfacing of Beacon a while back.

“We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings," the company said upon Facebook Connect’s announcement.

What is Facebook Connect?

Facebook Connect allows users to sign in to accounts on various partner sites with their own Facebook IDs, and then share activities from these other sites with their friends, not unlike Beacon (except for the whole involuntary aspect). It lets users access their Facebook friends directly from the third-party sites. Sites involved with Facebook Connect include Digg, Hulu, the Discovery Channel, and others.

"Whether you’d actually want to use your real identity on a site like Digg is another matter, of course," writes Jack Schofield on the Guardian Technology Blog. "It seems to me that the number of sites where you’d want to be identified is a very tiny subset of the web — though it could be a profitable subset."

Advertising Implications

Some think this will be the ticket Facebook has been looking for when it comes to advertising. "Facebook has detailed information about its users: their real identities, what they like and dislike and whom they associate with. With a member’s permission, it could use that data to help other Web sites deliver more personalized ads," says Brad Stone at the New York Times. "Similarly, those sites could tell Facebook what its users are doing elsewhere, helping to make its own ads more targeted."

Stone also quotes Charlene Li on the matter: “It’s becoming very clear that advertisers don’t know how to advertise on Facebook…But if you take a group of Facebook friends and put them on a travel site where they are spending more time and generating more ad dollars in a focused area like travel, that is an opportunity ripe for getting revenues back and sharing it.”

Avoiding Another Beacon Fiasco

Facebook has been taking its time with Connect, as is evident from the seven-month period between its announcement and now. They wanted people to know it was coming, and not creep them out. They wanted people to get familiar with it.

“We want to make the experience as lightweight and easy to use as possible," says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "But we also have to make sure that people understand what’s going on and have control over it.”

Reactions

So far, reactions for the most part actually seem pretty positive, which for some reason I find a little surprising. Browsing comment sections on a number of blog posts written about Facebook Connect, people seem eager to have the ability to call up their Facebook friends from other sites, and like the idea of not having to login to multiple sites. What do you think about it?

Facebook Brings Home the Beacon

Chris Crum — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:33:36 +0000

Facebook had its share of controversy late last year as a result of its Beacon advertising model. Basically what Beacon did was show you when your Facebook friends made a transaction on one of its partners’ websites. For example, if I bought a copy of "Mom and Dad Save the World" on Blu-Ray (if there is such a thing) on eBay, all of my Facebook Friends would know about it.

I would never do such a thing, but if I did, I wouldn’t be very happy about such embarrassing information being shared with everyone I know. It turned out many other people felt the same way and even started a petition against Beacon. Combine that with opt-in confusion issues, legal hassles, and partners backing out, and you have a failed plan. Or at least that was the general consensus.

Until now.

It seems that Beacon is back (or never really left as it were). A Facebook developer named Tom Kincaid signed up for fantasy football with CBSSports.com (a Beacon partner) recently and was greeted with a message that said, "CBSSports.com is sending this to your Facebook profile: Tom joined Free Fantasy Football – CBSSports.com on CBSSports.com Fantasy." Jesse Stay at Stay N Alive tried the same thing with the same results and confirmed that it was indeed Beacon at work when he viewed the page’s source to discover a little script:

According to Stay, Facebook is now at least giving users the option to share their info, which should alleviate most of the concerns that got Becaon in hot water in the first place. Nicholas Carlson at Valleywag also makes an interesting case in favor of Beacon, pointing out that the majority of Facebook’s users don’t even know or care what Beacon is.

Suddenly, Facebook’s motives behind deleting fake user profiles seem clearer. "Friends" might get annoyed when seemingly non-existent characters (or people named Yoda) purchase tickets to "Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys" from Fandango.

What Did YOU Think of Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes?

Andy Beal — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:56:58 +0000

I didn’t watch Mark Zuckerberg’s 60 Minutes interview.

There was really no need to when I knew that it would be dissected and digested by the blogosphere today. Still, I decided to go back and take a look when I saw TechCrunch highlight this Zuckerberg statement:

The ripping the scab off the wound moment of the night came with Beacon, and if I’d been sitting on a chair I would have fallen off it, and not due to jet lag. Asked about Beacon and as to whether users who signed up to connect with friends now felt that they were “snooped upon” Zuckerberg responded that “Beacon makes Facebook less commercial.” WTF? You can draw your own conclusions on that.

Yeah, I probably would have fallen off my chair too, if that had been the context in which Zuckerberg made his statement. Here’s how it really went:

“People signed up for Facebook thinking that it was a way to just stay in touch with their friends. And now some of them feel that there’s some snooping going on,” Stahl says. “Is there any concern you’re turning Facebook into something much more commercial?”

“I actually think that this makes it less commercial. I mean, what would you rather see? A banner ad from Bloomingdale’s or that one of your friends bought a scarf?” Zuckerberg asks.

It’s not quite the self-delusional statement that I thought I was going to see. Zuckerberg isn’t saying that Beacon makes Facebook less commercial than before. He’s really saying that Beacon is a “less commercial” option than displaying banner ads–I would agree with that.

So, before you read the dozens of blog posts–including this one–that will no doubt breakdown and analyze every thing Zuckerberg had to say why not try something old fashioned. Watch the interview yourself and then form your own opinions.

PS. TC’s Duncan Riley is an excellent journalist, so this is not a shot at him, rather at myself and others that rely too heavily on others’ interpretation of news.

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Facebook Ignoring Consumer Perspective

David Berkowitz — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 02:53:44 +0000

MediaPost reports:

In an interview set to air Sunday night, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told “60 Minutes” that Facebook’s controversial Beacon program “is going to be a really good thing.”

Zuckerberg, who acknowledged last month that the company made mistakes in rolling out Beacon, insists in the interview that its basic premise — harnessing users to endorse brands — is sound. “What would you rather see?” he asks in the interview. “A banner ad from Bloomingdale’s or that one of your friends bought a scarf?”

First off, Zuckerberg’s totally ignoring the consumer’s perspective about triggering that ad. I’d rather see some ad I can ignore, gloss over, or even act on rather than see my friends as unknowing brand whores.

The other problem is that with the format of Beacon we’ve been discussing, the ads are BOTH banner ads with friend endorsements. Zuckerberg’s having his cake and eating it here.

Let’s keep the pressure on and put a stop to the double dipping.

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Experts Discuss Facebook Advertising

David Berkowitz — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:10:07 +0000

A firestorm of explosive debate erupted on this blog recently as a record number of comments were posted to a discussion on new abuses from Facebook relating to its Social Ads and Beacon advertising offerings.

There are over 70 comments, and they all add color to the conversation. Today I’ve invited a number of people who’ve taken part in this discussion on my blog, their blog, or both to answer a few questions in this roundtable. Others like CK have posted their general thoughts on their own sites and have answered many of these questions in the comments on the original post.

Some of the questions and answers below refer to the comments there, so if you have a moment, I’d recommend at least skimming them.

Our panelists today include:

I’ll save my own answers for discussion in the comments or elsewhere. As for my general perspective on this, I have to be on Facebook as part of my job. Beyond that though, I love a lot of the various aspects of the site, such as applications like Scrabulous, tagging people in photos and sharing them, engaging in certain discussion groups, and other activities. Still, Facebook crossed the line here, and the outcry is not just merited – it’s not loud enough.

The first question and answer are below; there are six more in the extended entry (if you’re reading this on the blog homepage).

1) Because of how Facebook includes members in ad campaigns, are you changing your behavior with regard to becoming a fan of marketers’ pages or adding applications?

Jeremiah: No, I assume all information I publish online is public, except my emails. (to some degree) What I publish, I assume it will be read in my next interview, by my enemy, or by my mother.

Adam: Yes, my behavior has certainly changed. The main reason I ever became a fan of any of the brand pages, or added their apps was research. In the beginning of the Facebook ads program I would add any app or become a fan of any page but all that has changed. I am not willing to be a poster boy for Coke in the name of research (it is pretty silly and meaningless for a guy who does not even drink Coke).

Seni: I have steered clear 100% from entering any fan groups or brand based ‘normal’ groups after being spammed by Apple’s iTunes Student Music Group. However, from anecdotal evidence high school and college students are far more accepting of spam, or simply to do not care they are being spammed. If polled I’d bet they would say otherwise, but a number of people feel ‘more popular’ when they receive incoming messages on Facebook regardless of origin. Finally, I believe that broadcasting brand loyalty to friends will be embraced by students, and extra face time through the insertion of profile images will actually make the system more attractive. As a crude example girls that are members of 12+ "Hottest girls on Facebook" groups would love to have their image associated with an Agent Provocateur ad.

Howard: Yes, I’m quite concerned with becoming a fan now, even of brands or groups that I like. I’m not even sure where to look to see what the policy is regarding how my ‘fan endorsement’ may be used.

2) What would ultimately cause you to leave Facebook, if you haven’t already?

Jeremiah: Blatant misuse of my personal information without first getting agreement from me, or at least warning me.

Adam: At this point, I am so ingrained in Facebook, and get so much value from it; it would take a severe invasion of privacy for me to leave. I cannot say what it would take exactly, but I hope we don’t get there.

Seni: This is a tough one. At this point, 6 months out of college, my usage has decreased to about 10 min per week. However, I doubt I will ever cancel my account. I still get invitations to events, friend requests, and messages through facebook, however, they are all forwarded to my mail account so the site itself has become almost obsolete.

Howard: I think once I start getting spam or abuse from applications or people on Facebook, it’s going to be less useful. Right now, even with the overload of applications and invitations, I can still get a good set of information about my friends, what they’re doing, and what they care about. That’s important to me in this world where ‘grazing’ for items of interest is about the depth I’m at.

3) Much of the debate was sparked when commenter Alana said we should all just "get over it" and use Facebook on Facebook’s terms, with CK noting that’s a typical attitude for marketers. Is there any truth to the "get over it" approach? Could we be overreacting?

Jeremiah: I see this from two sides: 1) companies need to be responsible citizens in the ecosystem, and be respective of users rights. On the other hand, members forget that they are the ones who put the information on these websites; didn’t they read the terms of service?

Adam: You can never overreact when it comes to matters of privacy. We need the extreme individuals to regulate the market and keep lawmakers honest.

Seni: I 100% agree with CK’s perspective that a precedent must be made; however, I also believe that memes of this nature get a little overblown within these online circles. Again, the majority of students don’t care, and they are still by far the most active users, even though non-student total users has increased significantly.

Howard: No, “Get over it” is not a response to a customer, even if the customer is a ‘free’ customer. Free customers have value in an ad supported business model. They also have potential to be paying customers of your other customers/interested parties. Yes, occasionally customers who abuse the system should be fired. But this is not such a circumstance.

4) What’s a greater offense, Facebook enlisting its members in advertisers’ campaigns without members being able to opt in (or even opt out), or Google forcing you to have a Google Account to leave a comment on Blogger blogs?

Jeremiah: Misleading question, no answer… ;)

Adam: Both are pretty stupid (to say the least). That question is almost like asking, “would you rather me stab you in the ankle are the arm?”. It is a tough call.

Seni: Harkens back to the walled garden debate. Usage, demographic info, and behavioral data = $$$. I’d say both are on equal footing.

Howard: Facebook, of course. It’s annoying to not be able to comment, but you’re making an active choice if you comment on Google/Blogger blogs. The Facebook situation was totally an unknown option.

5) A recurring theme in general here is about the idea of giving consumers control over their marketing, privacy settings, and ways people can interact online (with each other, with brands, with publishers, etc). Over the past year or so, do you think the Web has become more open or more closed? Are trends pointing in favor of the consumer or those who have historically wielded control (eg marketers and publishers)? What do you expect for 2008?

Jeremiah: Expect to see more marketing done by looking by both using the preference behavior (gestures) of users, as well as their implied relationships in social networks. This is just the start.

Adam: I actually think that we may have taken a step back in 2007 in regards to control over marketing and privacy issues, but this is one area that Facebook has had a major impact on. Many people in the mainstream still do not know what behavioral targeting is, but Facebook, and all the concerns surrounding privacy that it has unearthed, has shed light on all tactics employed by interactive marketers (including traditional behavioral targeting). Due to increased awareness of such tactics, the mainstream will be more demanding in regards to transparency and control in 2008.

Seni: The question is if too much control is handed over, will people just turn advertising off?

Sure people argue that if it is relevant I won’t mind ads, or that if the creative is brilliant I will be awed and consider advertising entertainment. You’ve got to be crazy. If people can turn off ads they will, period. I know I would.

Advertising is necessary to subsidize media production, but consumers are fighting back and their voice must be heard. I don’t think it is as much a matter of control as it is respect. Make it a two-way conversation. Listen to the consumers and don’t betray their trust, because they will find out.

To hit the other points, I would say that a core principal of social media, new media, web 2.0, etc. is openness to facilitate community development and contribution. Thus, in my opinion the overall net has become more open with a few large bastions that need to be cracked… and they will, it is only a matter of time.

Howard: I think the efforts in the VRM working group towards giving end customers the ability to control their data, and to shift the dynamic toward the customer as central and in control, are important. Even if that effort only partially succeeds, it is a leading edge indicator of what a subset of customers wants – but they’re a vocal and leading edge subset. Marketers will do well to pay attention to these efforts to put customers in charge, and see how the systems and projects they’re developing in 2008 and beyond will react to such a challenge.

6) Who’s doing the best job of giving control to consumers? It can be a brand, website, anyone/anything.

Jeremiah: Open source initiatives and websites that believe in the open web. Mozilla for one.

Adam: That is a tough one. Nothing jumps out at me!

Seni: Again, all the social media properties are tools for consumers, thus consumers wield a incredible level of control.

Howard: I think Staples is a good example. They recently called my wife’s company to remind the company they had outstanding rewards points that were going to expire. They actually reminded them to use up an expiring rebate. Amazing. Plus, even without paying for overnight shipping, a huge percentage of stuff arrives the next day. They underpromise and overdeliver. Bravo.

7) In the interest of giving up control to you, what questions should I be asking everyone?

Jeremiah: Generation Y is notorious for telling us what they did, how much alcohol they consumed, and sometimes who they’ve ‘hooked up with’ (actual Facebook lexicon) how will this impact the future of communication? Will they integrate this behavior into the workplace, or will it disperse as they mature?

Seni: Does X new media execution really make sense for your message and your brand? Let’s try to fight off shiny new object syndrome and really synchronize media selection with what makes sense for the brand instead of jumping at shadows. This is the only way to increase credibility in the space. Then we can really have fun.

Howard: I think it bears study as to when you’re advertising for a brand, even if you don’t know it. I have a whole post on this – stay tuned.

Thanks to all our panelists; for convenience, the links to their blogs are repeated below. Answer any or all of the questions and respond to them in the comments.

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Facebook’s Growth Unaffected By Beacon

Doug Caverly — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:17:56 +0000

Skeptical investors have decided that Facebook does not abide by the “another day, another dollar” rule. It does, however, follow an “another month, more traffic” guideline, and the latest Compete stats prove the social network’s adherence to this trend.

While certain bloggers and press people worked themselves up over Beacon, Facebook’s members tended to go on with life. “The day after Facebook announced the news feed, 587,715 members joined a protest group called ‘Students against Facebook News Feed.’ Keep in mind, Facebook only had 9 million members at that point,” pointed out Nicholas Carlson.

He then wrote, “Compare that to the protest group MoveOn.org launched on November 20. Two weeks later, only 70,000 members have joined. That’s only 0.1 percent of Facebook’s 57 million active users protesting the product.”

Revealing, no? Now Jay Meattle has jumped in with more statistics; he found that Facebook experienced a 20.2 percent month-over-month jump in unique visitors, a 4.9 percent increase in sessions, and a 2.6 percent rise in page views during November.

With Beacon now tameable, and Facebook messages going straight to email, even greater growth rates seem likely in the future. This should make MySpace, Bebo, and everything else in Facebook’s way very concerned.

Facebook CEO on Beacon

Jordan McCollum — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:56:05 +0000

For the first time in over a year, there’s a serious enough issue with Facebook that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was compelled to write on the company blog (normally handled by ~~lesser underlings~~ developers and directors).

You get ten guesses what the issue was. And if you didn’t guess “Project Beacon,” you’re in big trouble. We’ve been covering this one for a while: announced almost a month ago, within weeks they were facing an FTC complaint threat and outraged users which lead to drastic changes.

And now they’ve done themselves one better: Facebook has apologized. Actually, Mark Zuckerberg did the apologizing, saying:

We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. While I am disappointed with our mistakes, we appreciate all the feedback we have received from our users.

As part of this apology, he states that they didn’t find the right balance between convenience/ease of use and privacy/invasiveness. He also announced that Facebook users will now have the ability to turn off Beacon completely.

Interestingly, the last time Zuckerberg posted on the Facebook company blog, it was to apologize for the invasiveness of the News Feed and Mini-Feed features, introduced late in summer 2006. Sounds like they didn’t learn their lesson.

It’s so nice to hear someone admit that they did something wrong and that they’re working to fix it, isn’t it? But will MoveOn.org . . . move on? Will Facebook users forgive them?

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Ad Frequency: MySpace vs Facebook

Jim Tobin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 17:29:31 +0000

comScore Ad Metrix is reporting today on the relative frequency of ads appearing on MySpace pages versus the relative frequency of ads appearing on Facebook.

While MySpace had twice as many unique visitors (68.4 million) than Facebook in September, they served six times as many ads. That’s leading some to suggest that Facebook has lots of room to run more ads on their pages.

What that ignores, however, is the brand damage that could do to Facebook, which is already reeling from a backlash over their Beacon program, which they recently adjusted.

Remember, Facebook’s “brand” is clean and pure. MySpace’s brand is the wild, wild west, so the ads are just another part of the chaos–along with hideously ugly templates that some people choose.

Facebook continues to grow nicely (129% growth over September 06), particularly relative to MySpace (23% growth), but right now MySpace is winning the battle to monetize their traffic, and Facebook hasn’t yet found that answer. The multi-billion question is if they ever will.

Here’s the projected growth of advertising on social networks through 2011. (I love eMarketer, by the way… Great info from those guys…)

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