Big ol' post on Facebook Beacon & Privacy over at WCF

I wrote a post this morning over at the Web Community Forum about Facebook’s new Beacon system and whether or not it’s an invasion of people’s privacy.

For those of you who don’t know, Beacon is part of Facebook’s new advertising push, and it is designed to broadcast your online purchases and rentals to your friends through the FB newsfeed. Online retailers can sign up to the system so that, for example, when I buy a coffee mug from Store X, a little item shows up in my newsfeed letting people know that I just bought said coffee mug.

The question is: does tracking and publishing your online shopping habits constitute invasion of privacy? I think that it wouldn’t if they’d implemented it differently. As it is, opting out of the service is difficult, hidden, and on a site-by-site basis. In other words, opting out of the service means going to the checkout screen at all participating retailers and unchecking a box. Then doing so again whenever new retailers sign up.

Regardless, go check out my post and let me know what you think.