Not the only one, Paul -- I've said pretty much the same thing, and been roundly criticized for doing so.

I think you're missing the point. Facebook said it would be opt-in, then changed it at the last moment to very hard to opt-out. When challenged, they pretended to make it opt-out but, again, didn't.

Do you want your book purchases on Amazon displayed on Facebook without the ability to easily opt-out?

Even Coca-Cola is backing off from them, saying Facebook CEO lied to them.

Do we have leaked financials for facebook yet?

They're leaking court transcripts; maybe someone could leak financials as well?

Opt-out makes little sense given that Facebook continues to demonstrate its inability to make intelligent decisions and that it's foolish to allow marketers to balance privacy and profit on behalf of users. Even Opt-in will be unusable because users will ignore or choose to avoid unnecessary chores. Allowing users to have 'personas' will help some but not enough.

What they should be doing is using Facebook groups/clubs to let users implicitly enable their program limited to specific contexts.

@mathew - disagreeing with you is not criticizing you *sheesh*

pk - privacy issues are considered serious bc of the potential for misuse. Sure, if this is just about xmas gifts being seen by your network, it's all pretty mundane and irrelevant. However, starting to track behaviour across sites on an individual basis without users permission starts to create the "potential" for something much more ominous to occur.

@ Paul..the thing that makes this different from the usual hullabaloo (imho) is that

(i) The CA guys showing that the Facebook "Phone Home" function is operating below the opt in/out layer, and possibly even for non-Facebook users. There are probably legal implications to this.

(ii) The implications of this are pretty serious - F/B is just the vehicle for a much larger debate, ie where are the boundaries of privacy going to lie in the next phase of the 'Net

Added to that, the F/B valuation model is based on a process that is demonstrable not going to be accepted - ie this is a highest stake game.

Displaying purchases might seem innocent but...

Your boss sees from your Facebook that you bought Job Hunting for Dummies at Amazon.

or

You buy flowers for your girlfriend at florist.com and your wife says, hey, I never got those flowers that Facebook said you ordered.

If you want to opt out of FB et. al (following the option suggested by pk) but would prefer not lose the services offered by them, then consider "user-centric social networks". Currently we are trialing one implementation of this approach at www.enthinnai.com.

a) the Senior Management should get some good exterior Directors to cousel them on this and all type of strategic topics before letting the cat out of the box, really. Now they have the money, invest in good advice.
b) not an easy way out but I think they have time to figure it out. The only reason we still have not seen formal suits is because the good Technology lawyers are already up to their mitts with work, and there are very few judges who clearly understand this type of business model.
c) I am more paranoid about my privacy now, thanks ( I have not got into Facebook mainly to avoid ex-girlfriends, but now...).

This latest Facebook debacle reminds me of last year when they launched the "news feed" application with no privacy settings--oops.

The outcry was so extensive, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter apologizing. Unfortunately, this is not the first or last of companies targeting individuals specifically. It makes me wonder what Microsoft is thinking now....

I don't know how you could *not* get worked up about it. E-tailers conspired with Facebook to display your purchasing activity to your network WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING, much less being able to opt out.

"If you don't like the way it wants to do it, don't use the service."

Surely you do not believe that companies should have an inalienable right to do anything they please with no scope for negotiation with consumers! Imagine if your credit card's or your bank account overdraft's interest rate changed without telling you? Would you just walk away? Not that easy, is it?

Almost all of us - including many freelancers - have access to a lot of data about lots of things. There is a reason why some of us refuse lucrative projects with competing parties which we could do and the other client would be no wiser. We refuse because the moral boundaries are so fuzzy that the risk is not worth it. Besides cheating is cheating, even if it is by changing rules as we go along.

What is not good for the goose is not good for the gander.

Besides as someone said in another comment earlier, this is part of a bigger debate on an evolving issue.

To take non-negotiable positions on the issue is foolhardy on the part of both Facebook and luminaries such as yourself!

I'm not sure it has so much to do with privacy or money as much as it has to do with "Can Zuckerberg do anything at all right(without controversy)?"

@Paul - sorry if you see two posts from me. the first post was eaten...

Much of what I was going to say has already been said, so I'll simply summarize: this is about trust. Facebook grew rapidly because it "tagged along" on the trust between friends. They facilitated an existing relationship, and figured out how to leverage that.

Once trust is broken, it is very difficult to regain. That is happening right now. When the CEO of Coca-Cola (essentially) calls you (Zuckerberg) a liar & then takes demonstrable negative actions against you, it is time to wake up.

If other advertisers pull out of Beacon this week, I would expect the two big investors (MS & ka-Ching) to demand a leadership change. I'm not sure they'll be able to pull it off though, given neither have board seats... which itself is pretty curious.

Update to my earlier comment: more advertisers are bailing:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/03/more-facebook-advertisers-bail-from-beacon-plus-new-concerns

From the TC post: "Consumer trust is a very fickle beast."

Yep.